Close Encounters 18
by chezchuckles
Summary: License to Kill. After receiving immunity, Beckett and Spy Castle head overseas to Cyprus for a second honeymoon in the hopes of regaining their equilibrium. But of course, nothing is that easy.
1. Chapter 1

**Close Encounters 18: License to Kill**

* * *

_as always, for Jessie, who has informed so much of spy as we know him:_  
_anything for you_

* * *

She hadn't expected to feel so trapped on the flight to Cyprus, like a caged wolf in sight of the woods, restless and anxious for freedom. But when they stepped out of the Paphos International Airport, a familiar and brilliantly blue sky awaited them, a breeze that smelled of olives and dark green trees.

They'd flown Ryanair for the last leg of their trip, and she'd taken it as a kind of sign, a touchstone to her world, an encouragement that this was the right choice to make, this was the right place for them for now.

Despite leaving a criminal case back in the States and Bracken looking like the martyred hero.

Cyprus was warm and the sun was welcoming, and Castle took her hand and led her down the sidewalk towards the line of taxis waiting. "You okay?"

"I'm good," she said easily.

"How are the ribs?"

"Not great after sitting so long," she admitted. She could feel every tread from the man's boot once more, but it would pass soon enough. "Get me to a hot tub, Rick Castle."

He smiled at her, his hair teased by the wind and flopping into his eyes. She reached up and brushed it back, came up on her toes to kiss the corner of his mouth.

"Hey," he said roughly. "Did you mention something about being pregnant?"

She laughed and tilted her head. "I might have."

"Huh. Go figure."

"Am I gonna have to explain how it happened - the birds and the bees?"

He grinned and looked like he was thinking about it. "Yeah, I think so. Maybe you could provide a demonstration?"

She laughed, startled out of her by just how _happy_ she could be in the midst of grief and not-knowing and thwarted justice. It didn't seem to matter so much that Bracken was dead, or that her mother's case forever closed without even a hint of prosecution, or that the NSA was going after the one man who knew every last detail about her husband's dependence on the regimen. But with Rick looking at her like she was delicious, with the achingly blue sky and the sun in her eyes, she felt untouchable.

"I think a demonstration could be arranged," she hummed, kissing him again. His lips were soft, like satin against hers, and she touched her tongue to his mouth, asking inside.

He cupped the back of her head and drew her in, their hips bumping, thighs brushing. She savored being this close, this free, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on through the ride.

When he lifted up, both of them a little breathless, she curled her fingers at his ear and rubbed his cheek with her thumb. "Hot tub, remember? Get me to a hot tub."

"Right, I'm falling down on my job. Let's get a taxi and get you inside."

_Inside_. She shivered and glanced over his shoulder at the blue sky. At least the hot tub in their honeymoon villa was outside, under the sky. Inside wasn't too appealing right now.

* * *

When Castle found her, she was standing in the bathroom in a two-piece bathing suit, skimpy and erotic, made to kill a man. He studied her a moment - watched her looking at herself in the full-length mirror - and then he crossed the threshold and came for her.

She laughed when his hands slid along the outside of her thighs and his thumbs hooked in the waistband of her black bikini. "Hey there," she said, turning her head to kiss his cheek.

"What're you doing?"

"Hot tub," she said brightly.

"I have some bad news," he murmured, kissing the side of her neck, humming in that way he knew she liked.

"What?"

"You can't," he sighed.

"I can't what?"

"No hot tub."

"Why-" She stuttered and her breath caught. "Shit, I didn't even - oh my God, Rick. I didn't even _think_." She turned around and hooked her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his. "How did you know? I didn't even _know_. Shit, I am so bad at this."

"You're not bad at this," he said, rubbing her back. "I wouldn't have known either. I just was flipping through that book your dad gave us and it was _in _there. Like divine intervention."

"I'm so bad at this. I don't even know enough to keep from cooking the poor thing. Holy shit." Her arm tightened around his neck. "This was a bad idea, leaving like this. It's not-"

"Dr Dennison said it was perfectly fine," he reminded her. "And we have the name of the guy in Paphos. Who we won't even need because we're only here three weeks. It's fine, Kate."

He could feel the shudder ripple through her and he knew she wasn't happy about leaving the States with Bracken a martyr and the NSA hunting down Black, but _he_ was happy. He was happy they had their lives, overjoyed they'd even had the _chance_ to get out of the country before someone decided Kate should pay for shooting the senator.

"New plan," she scraped out. "We're going back into town and finding a damn bookstore. Every baby book; we're cleaning them out. We have homework. Before I accidentally boil the kid."

He gave a strangled laugh and popped the waistband of her bikini. "But I really like this swimsuit."

"I didn't say I'd change," she chuckled, her lips grazing his jaw. "I'll throw on a sundress and send you lascivious looks over my shoulder while we walk to the store, get you all hot and bothered for me."

"Oh, yeah?" he laughed. It'd be torture, and in the best possible way. "Sounds good to me."

"Yeah, make you crazy with it," she hummed. "Think I can make you follow me into the bathroom this time too?"

"I am most definitely sure you can," he muttered, nudging his mouth into hers and stealing a quick, hot kiss.

"And then we can come back here and read in the pool. No hot tub."

"Pool can be good for your ribs too," he promised. "And I'll give you a massage."

"You can read to me," she said in his ear. She was already working on lascivious, apparently. Her tongue traced his earlobe and he clutched the nape of her neck, trying not to squeeze her ribs too badly. "You can read about babies in that sexy voice."

"That seems... inappropriate somehow," he muttered.

"Oh, no. Entirely appropriate. How else do you _get_ babies?"

"Hmm, you're so right. Sexy voice it is."

* * *

Kate reached up and dog-eared the page, turned into him on the float as the water lapped over the sides of the infinity pool. The villa's caretakers had filled it up too high but she loved how the water leaked over the sides, spilling over the brim like a metaphor.

"Were you reading that over my shoulder or reading yours?" she asked, tapping the baby book against his chest.

"Reading mine. Why, what did it say?"

"No _deli_ meat," she said. "Weird."

"What? Why no deli meat?"

"It might have this bacteria called listeria. Causes a miscarriage," she answered. Even the word on her tongue made her feel a little panicky, back to that drowning sensation she'd had before she'd seen the doctor - like it could all go wrong, like she could lose everything.

"Hey, hey, okay," he said quickly. "No deli meat. Got it. We can do that."

She nodded and opened up her book again, the panic falling away. She didn't want to have panic attacks with the kid inside her; that didn't seem like being a good mother.

"And maybe we can get the water tested," he said then, his lips dragging a kiss over her still-wet hair. The water in the pool sloshed against the raft and touched her toes, made her shiver.

"The water tested," she echoed.

"For lead, this says."

"Oh-okay." Kate let out a breath and chewed on her bottom lip, kept reading.

After another few minutes, the panic was clutching at her insides again, like little fingers curling in her guts. "Apparently I have to do a glucose test, to make sure I'm processing sugar correctly. So the kid doesn't get diabetes."

Castle grunted. "Yeah, I just read that. But if we keep eating healthy, you don't suddenly start drinking a gallon of soda every day, it doesn't sound like we have to worry."

"Then there's this thing called Rh factor, and if our blood types aren't compatible-"

"Kate," he groaned. His arm tightened around her and his forehead came down to her temple, his breath skittering across her skin.

"And the pre-natal vitamins might cause gall stones, this book says. Because of all the extra calcium and estrogen and stuff. So even when I'm doing everything right, I might still be doing damage."

"Shit."

"This is kind of freaking me out," she admitted. "There are all these... so many things to keep track of."

"And the regimen - the pills you're taking on top of it - I just..."

"Vitamins," she said quickly. "Just vitamins, supplements, like the pre-natal vitamin. I swear."

"But like you said - what if it does damage to you? What if, like the Rh factor thing, what if a kid with messed up DNA isn't compatible-"

"You don't know that," she pointed out. "We don't _know_ that he's got any of that. We'll find out with the amnio."

"But you're taking pills from Dr Boyd."

"Just to - to help him out. That's all. Just in case. Because these early weeks are so important for development."

Castle leaned back against the raft and she shifted to look up at him. He looked wrecked, absolutely wrung out, and that wasn't what this trip was supposed to be about. Not what their pregnancy was supposed to be about either.

"Forget it," she said quickly, taking the pregnancy book out of his hands. She threw it hard to one of the lounge chairs and the pages flapped as it flew, landing with a thud where she'd aimed. She tossed her own book after it and turned back to him with a triumphant grin. "No more."

He glanced across the pool to where she'd chucked their books, and then he laughed and shook his head at her. "All right. For today at least."

"Dr Dennison gave me a list of stuff to avoid, things to do, and I feel really good about her," Kate told him. "She knew we were headed overseas, and she told me to stay away from the seafood, and I just think - we should have fun. I don't want to spend this pregnancy afraid."

"No," he said quickly. "No, Kate, me neither. Even if - if something goes wrong, it's not - so long as you're here, alive, we can survive anything, you know?"

The grief was already bleeding through the edges of that statement and the worst hadn't happened; at least, it was for her. She wasn't sure she could, actually, survive losing his son.

Shit, the panic was just... ruthless today.

His arm snaked around her neck, but she had to unwind it, holding his hand to her chest instead as she breathed. "Just... let's not do this today."

"Okay," he said. "Not today. Honeymoon, right? It's our second honeymoon. We have three weeks to enjoy ourselves. Celebrate."

She nodded, grateful he was going along with it. She didn't want to think about all the ways she could screw this up; she just wanted to float in her gorgeous pool and let the sun sink through the blue sky while her husband played with her hair.

She laid down next to him again, her cheek against his shoulder and took a deep, cleansing breath. Dr Dennison had said it was important to find a space to breathe, and she knew it. She curled Castle's arm in close and kissed his knuckles.

"Do you think it really is a boy?" he murmured.

"Yeah," she grinned. "I do."

"A feeling or..."

"Mm, a feeling. Can you feel it too?"

"I don't know if it's just that's all I can picture or if it's really a feeling." He moved his hand away from her clasp and settled his palm over her stomach. It seemed to flutter under his touch, her skin rippling and her insides moving to meet him.

"Was that-?"

She laughed. "No, no. Just me. Can't feel the baby for a long while yet."

"Oh."

Kate grinned, closed her eyes to feel the sunlight on her face and the heaviness of her husband's arm across her stomach. She rubbed lightly up and down his forearm and then tangled her fingers with his.

"What does it feel like?" he said. "Right now, I mean. Can you feel him?"

"No," she admitted. "I don't - it's not anything other than - maybe thick? That doesn't explain it very well. I would never have known if it hadn't been for Boyd doing that bloodwork for the iron deficiency. A check-up, that's all. I still wouldn't know."

"Well, you'd be pretty late."

"You know me," she sighed. "That happens."

"Oh, yeah, I guess so. Faked us out a few times there."

"Yeah," she muttered, rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses. "I guess I'm lucky. No morning sickness, no feeling tired."

"Oh, this book - well, the book you threw," he chuckled, "mentioned the tiredness. Said to give in and take as many naps as you need."

"But I actually feel the opposite. Maybe I'd have noticed this sign," she gave him. "Feeling buzzed. Having energy for more."

"What does that mean?"

"Like..." She paused to try to figure out a way to explain it. A way that wouldn't make him nervous about anything _super_, which were her own suspicions about it. "When that NSA agent said we had to leave the country, I immediately said no."

"Well, that's-"

"Not because it was _smart_ - obviously, not smart to stay - but because I wanted to fight. I still do. I want to fight this so badly, Rick. Just - it's buzzing through me. The need to fight. And it's not even about my mother."

"It's not?"

"No," she whispered. "I knew it wasn't. Which is why I didn't say it. But it was for - for the justice of it? For the principle. My mom's been gone for a long time now, and I've gotten closure. Killing the senator didn't _help_ any of that. It only made me - kinda messed everything up that I'd been able to do for myself. So it's not that. It's just - I'm wired."

His fingers flexed at her abs, started to do a slow tease around her belly button. "Need a way to burn off some of that energy?"

She caught her breath and turned to kiss his jaw. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. Why don't you slide your hand a little lower?"

* * *

It was good here, easier to forget how awful the last few months had been for them, to remember only that they'd created exactly what they'd wanted for themselves.

Easier to be happy.

Kate had a hold of his hand as they left the villa, stopping on the little stone path to wait for him to lock up behind them. The air was cool in the early morning sunlight, and she'd already gone for a long run alone at dawn, the beach under her sneakers and the water chasing her farther away than she'd meant to go.

The thrill of being outside, free, under the sky with the endless Mediterranean beaming the sunlight back to her - it had made her feel alive again. Like she could do this, like she just might be able to keep hold of their baby long enough to bring him safely into the world.

She was looking forward to it; she didn't think she'd ever felt quite like this before.

Kate tugged on his hand to get him moving; he was being slow this morning, dragging his feet, and she was almost bouncing off the walls, she was so ready to get out there.

"You remember that restaurant we went to - the place with the wobbling table and the cracked tile and-"

"And the bathroom?" he smirked.

She grinned back at him. "Oh, yes. You do remember."

"I do."

"I want to go back there for lunch. Dinner. Something. Today. You up for it?"

"Today?" he hesitated. "We're going to be out all day in the market. You're making me _shop_, Beckett."

"Mostly just groceries," she insisted. "And maybe if there's something... I don't know. I like when we buy things from all of our places - it makes it meaningful. But we don't have to."

"I don't mind buying you things," he said quickly. His arms wrapped around her in a sudden tight embrace, his lips glancing against her cheek. "I'll buy you anything, baby. You're doing all the work here."

She laughed. "Mm, that's more like it. Come on. We've already wasted too much time."

He huffed in her ear but she was already ignoring his petulance and dragging him down the path to their gate. She felt him jogging to catch up with her, his longer strides quickly overtaking her, and he pushed through the gate first, his head swiveling back and forth in a way that made it suddenly so clear to her.

He was afraid. He was being careful.

Her heart twisted for him, her strong, beautiful man, and she let him have a second to clear the street and sweep the sidewalk, and then she stepped out after him.

"Hey," she said softly, taking his hand once more. "I went running this morning. You knew that, right?"

"You did?" he said, turning to look at her.

"Around six, when the sun was rising," she told him. "I sleep hard when I do sleep, but I've been waking early."

"You didn't wake me," he said. "I would've run with you."

"I wanted to go alone. It was just along our beach," she reassured him. Or tried. He looked distinctly uneasy. "I'll wake you next time. I promise." Kate leaned in and kissed his cheek softly. "I thought you knew I was gone."

"No, I never... I didn't even know."

"Hey, it's okay. Our beach is private and the sun was up and it was gorgeous."

"Did you swim?"

"No," she said quietly. Really, the paranoia was kind of ridiculous. If she'd wanted to swim, she wasn't stupid enough to do it alone in the Mediterranean. And the beach was _theirs_, and she was a covert operative with the CIA, highly trained, and what in the world did he think would happen?

"I wish we knew where Black was," he said tightly. His face was turned away from her, awash with weak morning light.

She sighed and leaned her cheek against his shoulder. "We said no more of that," she murmured. "We're celebrating, remember? I went for a run because I feel really good, and it's healthy, and I'm going to keep up my defensive training for as long as I can."

"I know," he said quickly. "Believe me, that - that makes me feel better."

She almost said _It's not to make _you_ feel better at all_. But she closed her mouth and squeezed his hand harder, trying to remind him that she was here, alive, they were both alive.

"I'm proud of you, Kate," he said suddenly. "You've been - it's been rough, and you've been attacked from all sides, and yet you just don't stop. You never stop. You are relentless, and I love you for that."

"I wasn't about to let you find me like that," she said intently. Kate stopped them in the middle of the sidewalk, holding on to him. "I wasn't going to let you _find out_ like that either. I wanted to be the one to tell you. Not Lanie."

"Lanie - oh, God," he groaned, gripping her harder, wrapping himself around her. "A coroner. I just, shit. It was too close. I'm not sure I can-"

"You can," she murmured against his ear. "You can. We're here, we're alive. We're going to have a baby, Rick."

"Yeah," he gruffed, nudging his nose into her neck and letting out a long breath. "Yeah, we are."

"You're kinda on the edge here, love."

He gave a disgruntled laugh and pulled away from her, fingers releasing her hair and stroking down her arm to take her hand again. "All right, I'm cool now," he said, but his voice still rasped. "You know just what to say."

"I've got you figured out," she smiled back.

He shook his head, a narrow-eyed look at her, but he started down the sidewalk again, smiling at least, his eyes forward and no longer darting around. He was still _careful_, of course; she'd never break him of his spy habits. But he wasn't irrational about it - the paranoia could be contained.

He was just a man taking a walk with his wife through the Cyprian streets, heading for a market and maybe to buy her something invested with all the meaning this second honeymoon held for them.

If they also happened to be spies lying low while the heat blew over at home, well, that was something they could handle. They had always been those people. A pregnancy wasn't going to change that.

Castle glanced over at her and smiled, true joy in his eyes again, and he leaned in and kissed the corner of her mouth.

Honestly, she was surprised that their roles had reversed. She was the one pregnant, the one who had to keep the kid safe from everything, and yet Castle was the one who seemed to be unraveling over it.

Well, not a whole lot was in his control, was it? Not a whole had _been_ in his control either, and while she knew she craved it, she also knew he did as well. What was it King had told her?

Time to let him drive for a while.

She could find a way to do that; she could help him out as he'd helped her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Close Encounters 18**

* * *

Castle tried to hold on to her in the market, but it was just too busy, too crowded for that. They kept getting separated as they wandered, and every time her hand slipped out of his, his heart gave a funny lurch, a hard thump that had his breath catching.

It was an open air market half comprised of stalls and half the open trunks of people's vehicles, selling products and handmade items. The posters tacked up around town had called it a Car Boot Sale, like a flea market; they'd already managed to buy some fresh fruit, sample the hummus, and sip hot drinks as they meandered through wave after wave of crowds. It would be enjoyable but for the way Beckett sometimes darted ahead of him and disappeared, something catching her eye so that she turned and left him there, no word other than, _oh, look_.

When he finally lost sight of her in a maze of clothing stalls, he had to work hard not to call out her name, not draw attention to themselves. It was really the only thing holding him back from absolutely losing his cool, knowing that they had to be just another touristing couple, that they couldn't leave an impression.

"Oh, love, come look at this," she said suddenly, coming up behind him. Her fingers plucked at his t-shirt and when he turned, her face was radiant. "Come here. It's so - it's perfect."

She was drawing him after her, her eyes both seductive and hopeful, that tentative joy that had been cultivating in them both. She pulled him to a stall comprised of wooden carvings and knitwork, Chilean caps and scarves mixed with hand-painted flowers and - strangely enough - Russian nesting dolls.

"Look," Kate said proudly, scooping up a knitted hat with a connecting scarf, small, a little wolf face patterned into the top - flat square nose, black eyes, and then those pointed, particular ears. "Did you see the baby paw prints?"

She slipped her hand down the scarf and he realized the ends were mittens, little pockets for little hands, and that the gray wool held the telltale brown paw print where the palm would be.

His throat was too closed up to speak.

She nudged his shoulder and leaned in to kiss him like she knew. She had to know.

"Yeah, that's..."

She was smiling now, that beautiful and pressed lip smile, tenderness that radiated out. "We'll get it, hide it away until he comes."

"It's - isn't it big for him?"

She laughed softly. "Yeah, for a toddler. It's the idea of it though, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he admitted. Just the vision of a little face peering out from under the wolf's dark eyes. "Yeah, we should get it."

Kate, so pleased now that she was practically purring with it, turned back to the stall's owner and nodded. Castle let them haggle over a price, but his fingers rubbed over and over those round paw prints, almost able to feel the child's hand inside the mittens, reaching up for his.

And then Kate was drawing it out of his grip, laughing at him a little, cupping the side of his face as she gave it back to the woman to wrap in tissue paper. "You're a little cute," his wife murmured at him. "But snap out of it, love. Long way to go."

* * *

They had a little wolf hat tucked into tissue paper and a secret smile shared between them. She sipped her coffee knowing it would be the only one of the day, and she wandered through the closely packed crowd with Castle at her back.

She found fresh dates and plums that she could barely resist eating right there - but now everything had to be washed first. Pesticides and bacteria. She was learning; it was no different than the caution she'd learned in the Police Academy, the awareness instilled in her for work in the CIA. It was just oriented around what went on inside her body rather than what was going on outside it.

She found that funny.

Beckett had never really been any good at knowing when to quit. And now she was supposed to be paying such strict attention to her limitations.

The marketplace was made of mostly mud brick and wooden tables, cardboard boxes stacked high for shelving and then re-used and flattened as public walkways when the paths got too muddy. The jumble and the busy-ness was attractive and even thrilling, buzzing in her blood and making her stomach flutter.

She was going to have to tell him about this; she knew it. This sensation she had almost constantly now, of movement and of _going_, the feeling that she had all this energy and strength - it was doing wonders to combat her fears. It made her think that not only could she do this, but that she might actually be good at it. She might be exactly what his son needed.

But these pills, the supplements - Castle was always studying her now, looking for it, and she knew he was suspicious that they were more than just extra vitamins. And he wasn't _right_, but he wasn't wrong either.

"Kate," he called out.

She turned and realized she'd gone at least ten yards ahead of him, so she waited beside a stall that smelled of overripe cherries, dark and bitter, and her mouth was watering for fruit. Instead she sipped slowly at her coffee and stepped beside Castle as he caught up with her.

God, she felt good. She felt ready to tackle anything. And the funny thing was, the only thing really missing from these pills Boyd had concocted for her? The mood stabilizers that Castle's stabilizers had always had. The one thing she had thought might actually help her, she didn't even need because the rest of it did the trick.

She felt really good; it was ridiculous how strong, how _ready_ she was. Dr Dennison was in touch with Boyd, they'd all talked about it, and the conclusion both of her doctors had come to was that it was a lot of maternal instinct getting a boost from having a well-balanced and well-rounded, healthy, daily regimen.

Just not _the_ regimen. Because being healthy for once in her life was going to make her feel pretty damn good, but it wasn't _super._

She didn't think Castle wasn't going to like it, no matter what she called it.

He'd see how it helped though; he'd already commented on her deep sleep, her hair, her - ah, energy. She knew it was going to be an intense conversation so she had put it off, but she figured it was time they started talking.

She stopped at a vendor displaying fruit she didn't recognize, lifting a hand to touch the dark-skinned plum-thing. She could smell it, distinctly, like bitter almonds, and it sent a shiver racing up her back, made her shoulders hunch.

She suddenly didn't want to be here. She glanced around for Castle, but he wasn't close by; she'd lost him again.

"_Mia stigmí_," she murmured, holding up a finger and turning around to search for her husband. The stall immediately to her left was filled with heavy blankets and tapestries displayed floor-to-ceiling and resplendent with color and weight. She ducked around them and glanced through the ever-thickening, teeming crowd, searching for the broadest shoulders and the man standing heads taller than any here.

Her heart was beating a little too fast, like her fight or flight response was amped. She felt the urge to press her hand to her stomach as if to calm the _baby_, but she ignored it and kept moving, retracing their steps.

She didn't see him at first. She was tall herself, but the market was overstuffed, people and their wares, racks of meat and stands of fabric, moving bodies and darting children, goats and bushels of pistachios.

And then she saw him leaning against the wall of a fruit vendor, back by the vendors' own pathway behind the stalls, his shoulders hunched and his hands on his knees.

She threaded back through the crowd as quickly as she could, going upstream and against the flow, but she wriggled between two stalls and came up behind him.

Castle jerked as if startled, but she gripped his forearm and rested her palm at his back. "Hey, what happened to you?" she said, leaning in to speak directly in his ear so he'd hear her. "Turned around and you had disappeared."

He shook his head and she saw now that his mouth was pursed tightly, lips blanched.

Her heart dropped. "Castle. Castle, can you breathe?"

He sucked in a breath like he'd been _holding_ it, and then his hand came to her shoulder and he made an effort to stand up straighter.

"Castle," she croaked. "Come on, baby, you're scaring me."

"My - my arm is numb," he rasped, leaning back heavily against the wall, his head crashing into the wood. He was panting now, swallowing down air, and Kate felt that seed of panic pushing hard into her heart.

"Your arm is numb," she repeated. "What else? Castle. Look at me. Tell me what's wrong."

He blinked and scraped a hand down his face. "My arm - shooting pain in my arm and now it's numb. I can't - can't breathe right. Feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest."

She reached out and cupped his face in her hands, oriented him towards her. "Still hurts? Castle, does it still hurt?"

"Yeah," he got out. "My chest is tight." He pressed his knuckles against his sternum and hunched over it, like he could crack open his own ribs and get inside, make it right.

"How long have you felt the pain?"

"Just - while we've been walking," he admitted. "I thought I - I don't know. Pinched a nerve. Feels like a damn heart attack."

And Castle with strange, malformed blood.

"Kate, I - I gotta sit down."

She caught him before he could fall, controlling his descent with her arms gripped around his waist until she could get him leaning against the wall. And of course, she didn't have aspirin because she was pregnant and couldn't take it. Damn it. She straightened up, intent on begging aspirin from someone as an emergency measure for a heart attack, but Castle caught a fistful of her shirt and pulled her down.

"Rick. Sweetheart, I need to get you aspirin, call a doctor-"

"Sit. Right here - with me," he said. "It's not - it's already fading."

"Oh, love, that's not - not good enough. I need to find you a doctor."

"I can breathe now," he murmured. "I'm okay."

She stroked the hair back from his face and studied his eyes, the color in his cheeks. He was tracking her movement just fine; he was supposed to be _super. _But a heart attack? She had no idea.

"Have you been taking the supplements?" she said quietly.

"I have," he grunted. "I promise, Kate. Eggs, like Dr Boyd said. And the stuff with all the anti-oxidants and even the nasty fish oil. I have. I have-"

"Okay, okay," she murmured. She touched his neck and felt his heart rate a little too fast, but still strong. "Arm still feel funny?"

"No, it's passed," he said. "The moment you got here. Better with you here."

She knelt between his legs and pressed a hand over his heart, as if she could divine what was wrong with him. His chest expanded and she felt his lungs release, like they'd been held too tightly, a vise around him, and then she got it. She understood.

"Oh, baby," she sighed. "You had a panic attack."

"What?"

"A panic attack. Castle. I should have seen - all day you've been doing this, but I didn't catch on. I'm so sorry, love." She wrapped an arm around him and brought him into her side, kissing his forehead. "You freaked out on me when I said I'd gone running, and then that little worry furrow has been in your forehead all day. You kept clutching at my shirt too, hanging on to me. You never do that."

"I don't get panic attacks."

"Well," she said slowly.

"I - a panic attack?" He growled and shook his head, pushed up to stand. "That's not - I don't - no, I'm not-"

"Choose your words carefully," she warned him, standing herself. "Because _I_ get panic attacks."

He closed his mouth and she narrowed her eyes at him.

Castle groaned and closed his eyes, rubbed a hand down his face. She waited until he'd had his moment and then she wrapped an arm around his waist and tucked in close.

"You're right," he sighed. "A panic attack. I did - I had gotten a little nervous about how I couldn't see you in the crowd."

She brushed peanut shells from his back where he'd been sitting against the stall, moved away from him so she could see his eyes. "We should probably be talking about this, Rick."

"Talking about what?"

She snorted and lifted the corner of her lips into a smile. "Really? Isn't denial _my_ m.o.?"

He smiled back, though his looked a little weak. "Okay, so talk."

"Not here," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "We'll go back to the villa - where you feel safe-"

"It's not about _me_ being safe. It's you," he grumbled. And then their eyes met and he gave her a bashful look. "Ah. I see. Okay. Yeah, a panic attack." He winced. "Shit. I think I've had more than a couple the last few days."

She hooked her arm through his and led him back out into the throng of people. They couldn't go back the way they'd come - the crowd wasn't going that direction - but they would step out of one of the many exits and go home.

"Come on, my big bad wolf," she murmured, leaning in to kiss his temple. He growled at her for it, but she liked it. They'd switched from elephants to wolves somehow, and her spy was most definitely a lone beast she'd adopted out of the woods. "We'll go home; we'll talk about everything that's happened. I just wish Dr King could mediate."

Castle didn't voice his agreement, but he did keep a tight grip on her arm, so tight she was surprised he wasn't using both hands to hold on to her.

Yeah, they definitely needed to talk.

* * *

He was faintly surprised when she pressed the knitted wolf hat against his chest and told him to _do something_ with it. He'd almost forgotten it in the middle of things. But he dutifully went upstairs and hid the wolf in the lining of his suitcase; it wasn't an ideal hiding spot but it would have to do.

Beckett was there when he turned around; she was watching him.

"I'm okay," he said.

She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment more and then sighed. "I wish we had Dr King here."

"We don't need him," he scoffed. But he thought the same. "All he ever does is sit in his chair and nod."

She smiled a little. "Mm, yes. But it's a relief every time he _does_ nod. Don't you think?"

"Yeah," he laughed, sinking down onto the foot of the bed. "When he nods, it's like he's proud of you."

She came towards him, stepping easily between his knees. Castle framed her hips with his hands and leaned in, lips to the heat of her skin through her shirt. She combed her fingers in his hair and let him stay, and so he pressed his cheek against her stomach and closed his eyes.

"I'm proud of you," she whispered to him.

He let out a little laughing breath, squeezed her hips in thanks. When he lifted his head, she sank down to his knees, straddling his lap, her concern for him wrapping around him like a blanket. It was just so _nice_ to have the attention; in such a selfish and primal way, he guessed he'd been wanting her to notice him, notice that he was barely holding it together.

She squeezed his shoulders and leaned in to embrace him, her arms tight, her lips brushing his jaw. They weren't supposed to talk when they were this close - one of King's rules - but it was too safe feeling like this to hold it back.

"I'm just afraid all the time," he rasped.

"I didn't know," she murmured, kissing his jaw now. It was a big rule they were breaking, touching each other when they were supposed to be talking. King was so strict about it - opposite chairs and eye contact and validating statements.

But he felt better like this. "He said he was coming after you, and he _has_. One thing after another and I can't keep you safe."

"I know," she sighed. "But we keep each other safe. We work together."

"Yeah, that's nice and all, good sentiment, but it's just not true. He could have hired a sniper and we're walking around in an outdoor market and just like that, you're gone. You're gone-"

"Your heart's racing," she murmured in his ear. "Slow it down, baby. You're okay."

"I'm not okay," he groaned, arms tightening around her.

"But _I'm_ okay. And that's what you're worried about."

"Worried is such an understatement that it's insulting."

"Okay, okay. You're afraid. I heard you. You're afraid your father's going to kill me."

"Yes," he got out tightly.

She stroked the back of his neck, but she kept close, her cheek to his. "Well. There are ways to fix that."

"_How_?" he croaked. "I'm lying awake at night trying to figure out _how_ we can possibly-"

"A new deal."

"What?" he growled.

"Listen to me," she said fiercely, pushing back now and gripping him by the nape of his neck. "You _said_ you'd listen to me."

"I'm listening," he ground out.

"You told me - Rick, you _said_, next time, next time _try harder_. So I'm talking here, I'm _trying_, and you need to hear me."

"Okay," he said, but already his heart was thrashing in his chest. A new deal? A new deal with the one man who wanted to kill her?

"You promised," she whispered.

He groaned and dipped his head, crashing into her neck even as he tried to pull it together. "I promised," he confirmed. He had, he had told her there were better ways than throwing herself straight into the maw of the beast, and he had to fucking get it together and prove they could talk about this.

"A new deal, Rick."

"A new deal," he repeated, taking a gulping breath. He lifted his head. "What - what deal?"

"I don't know yet, but things have changed. It's not the same set of circumstances; we have new terms."

His heart stopped. "No."

"Just think about it."

"We are _never_ telling him about James."

Her eyes were shot through with green, an aching, painful green like shards of glass. She was breaking inside; he could see it. She was shattering because he was doing it again - he was completely shutting her down.

"Why?" he croaked, forcing it out of his mouth. "Why would you think that's a good idea?"

"Because he's going to find out anyway," she whispered.

Horror washed through him so keenly that the next thing he knew, Kate was cradling his head and urgently asking him if he needed to lie down.

"Rick? Come on, love. Castle. Castle, can you-"

"I'm - okay. Here. I'm here," he gasped, sucking down a breath that wouldn't come. She'd already pushed him back to lie flat on the mattress, and he found himself staring up at the ceiling and Kate's face hovering over him.

"Panic attack," she said calmly.

"Shit." He pressed a hand to his eyes and groaned. "Shit, this is not good."

"It kind of undermines all of my attempts to be truthful with you," she admitted.

Castle struggled to rise, appalled at how it had swept over him just like that, without warning or explanation, and completely laid him low.

"But you've been trigger happy for weeks now," she murmured, sitting next to him and combing her fingers through his hair.

"Trigger happy?" he grunted.

She was smiling softly at him. "That's what I call it. When I can feel it looming. And you fight it back. Sometimes you just have to let it burst, drain out of you. It'll be better now."

"Hope so," he got out. "But I - don't want to sabotage your attempt to be truthful. Keep - keep talking."

She sighed and her fingers stroked at his nape, the side of his neck, his throat. "Okay."

But she wouldn't; he saw that too. She wouldn't push him. "You want tell him," he prompted. "Tell my father we're pregnant."

She gave him this dopey little grin, her cheeks flushing, and she leaned in and knocked her shoulder into his. "We are."

She liked the _we? _He laughed even though it was hollow, but she was leaning her cheek against his shoulder and twining her arm with his, fingers lacing. She felt good pressed along his side like this, and it was kind of beautiful to see how it took her. Made her happy.

"If we control the information, we have a better chance of controlling the response," she said then.

"I can't imagine what he'd do knowing that I got you pregnant - that it's _family time_," he said bitterly. It scared the shit out of him.

"Castle, you are the most important thing to him. That has always been true. I can _trust_ it."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Russia," she said quietly. "You were going to die. Rick, I... you were going to die and he was there."

"But that's-"

"It _is_ the same," she insisted. "Because he could have killed me then and there."

Castle barely managed it, but he kept from breaking apart with it. "Okay."

"He could have but his priority _isn't_ me. You are his priority. So we carried you into the cargo hold of the chopper - it wasn't even supposed to work. It was... he could have shot me after we got you settled. But there wasn't any time. You needed immediate medical attention. How fast would one bullet have been? But he didn't risk it. He absolutely wouldn't put your life in jeopardy a moment more. And _that_. That I trust."

He felt sick. He wished, again, that he'd killed his father long, long ago.

And yet, if he had, they would have both died in Russia.

"I don't see how that connects to this," he said finally. His father would be so furious when he discovered Kate was pregnant. Hadn't Rick heard his whole life how the life of a spy was meant to transcend family life, be more than the average working slob? _You're not built for that, you're built for greatness._

Kate leaned back against the headboard with her hands pushed between her drawn-up knees. She was regarding him thoughtfully; she'd already established the usual parameters for their serious conversations - no touching, sit opposite one another, look each other in the eyes.

It worked. He wished it didn't sometimes, but it fell over him like peace. They'd talk and it would be better and everything was going to be fine - it always hit him like that.

"You ready?" she said quietly.

He nodded.

She pushed her feet down to the bottom of the bed, her toes touching his thigh. A little rebellion against the rules. "You were five. He _raised_ you. However poorly, whatever his terrible methods - he still did the work. I'm not saying I excuse it, or him, or anything he did to you-"

"It's not _me_ I'm worried about. I don't care what he did to me - it's not even - what do I know, Kate? It's what he does to you."

She nodded, and he realized he'd interrupted.

"Sorry, go on. Go. I'm listening, Kate, I swear."

"It is about what he does to me," she said finally. "You're right. Which is why we tell him that I'm carrying _your son_."

Something about that caught him funny, made his insides shiver and turn inside out.

"Or daughter," she smiled. Her lips were turned up like she was listening to some inner voice. "Oh, but I think we both know it's a boy."

Castle finally broke, able to breathe again, able to smile back. "Yeah. Until it isn't."

She laughed then, a soft one, light, barely there but still happy. It kind of knocked him sideways, realizing he'd made her happy like this. Despite everything.

"He won't touch me while I'm pregnant."

Castle stopped smiling. The awful _logic_ of it hit him cold.

"He wouldn't ruin his legacy," she kept going. "Especially when we tell him I'm - I'm taking the regimen."

He froze, shocked into absolute stillness by that statement.

She immediately came up on her knees beside him, arms around his neck and hanging on tightly. "Not like that. It's just what we _tell_ him, Rick. Okay? Because it's so close to the truth he wouldn't be able to distinguish a difference."

"It is?"

"The vitamins I'm taking from Boyd are - they're not entirely the regimen, Rick, no. But they have so many parts similar to those stabilizers..."

"I thought so," he said, feeling it settle in his chest like a weight.

She sank back against her heels and watched him a moment. "Castle, I promise you - and you know how I feel about promises - I _promise_ that we have looked over every single element and it is _safe_. Me, Dr Boyd, and Dr Dennison as well. We all agreed. Dr Dennison was even really excited about it and wanted to use something similar for one of her patients."

"Yeah?" he croaked, glancing up at her.

"Yes," she said firmly. "They really are just supplements, like I've been calling them. I was afraid that if you knew how similar the elements were-"

"I'd freak out? Well, I'm already way past freaked out," he said, trying not to let it come out harshly.

"I know," she said softly. Her hand came again to his thigh, her body shifting closer. "I know and I'm sorry I haven't really explained."

"I'm kinda glad you didn't," he laughed. He felt so tired; he didn't know how she dealt with this all the time. He let himself flop back to the mattress and he dragged her down with him.

She laid against his side, fingers stroking along his sternum.

"Just promise me we won't tell him yet," he said finally. "I can't - it has some logic to it, Kate, that scares the shit out of me. But I can't see clear of how it - he'll never - not yet. Just not yet."

"Okay," she said quickly.

"But you keep talking," he added roughly. "Don't quit trying."

"I won't. We're talking; we'll keep talking."

"Because I just... but it could be - I don't know."

"Can you hear the rest?"

"There's more?" he groaned.

"About your father."

"Okay. Yes. Lay it on me."

She lifted up and kissed his closed eyelids, moved his hand away from his face. He reluctantly opened his eyes and she smiled down at him.

"He's only ever wanted you - his legacy to the world - to be the best, most efficient CIA agent possible. I might make you inefficient, and worse - emotional and compromised, but add in the element of a - a grandson - to his world view, Castle. What do you think he sees?"

A grandson. Just the idea of it, of a _claim_ over his son made him want to throw things. Or throw up. "He sees..."

"He sees his empire," she said softly. "His work to create the perfect machine - if we can talk to him, I really do think he'll compromise. It's not what he wants, but it's better than nothing, better than being constantly thwarted by this force he can't see and doesn't understand."

"Our love," he said thickly. He knew what that force was; they'd affirmed it time and again. "He doesn't comprehend it. He never loved Martha, poor woman, but sometimes I think - if he had just let himself..."

"I think so too," she whispered, kissing his cheek. "How she might have changed him. How he might have given her a little more backbone, a little more confidence."

"Confidence is not exactly what's he interested in. Obedience."

"Well, but with your mother around, how might that have changed? But he had this vision, Castle, for how things could go, and then what happened to make him take a five year old boy and raise him?"

He drew his arm around Kate and dragged her in close. "I don't know."

"Me either," she mused. "And I think that's the part of him that will be willing to broker a new deal - just for the chance to meet his grandson."

"God, it makes me sick."

"I know. I know, but we don't have many options. And _keeping_ it from him might endanger our chances of striking a deal. If we tell him straight, if we - if we come to him and present it like a confession? If we play this right, like we're interested now in what he can do for us, for his grandson-"

"I wish you'd stop saying it like that. He's my son," he growled. "Not his... nothing of his."

"To us, with us - he's ours. To Black, we have to _make him_ want James just as much."

"No," he choked out. "God, no. That scares the shit out of me."

"You think it doesn't scare me? I have all these childhood fairy tales about princes being stolen from their cradles and princesses hiding in the woods from a curse. It scares me too, Rick, to think that he might..."

"I'd just really like to kill him," Castle rushed out. "Can't I just kill him? It solves every problem. It just..."

She was silent for a long moment and he hoped she was still talking, still keeping her promise, but he _did_ want to just get it over with, have it be done. Just wrap his hands around Black's throat and push the life out of him.

And even as he pictured it, he had a worse vision - of trying to explain to his son why his father had to murder his grandfather.

Fuck, she'd already done it. She'd already made their unborn baby - their innocent little wolf - into Black's grandchild.

He couldn't unthink it.

"The deal could work," she said softly. "He doesn't kill me, you don't kill him, and we establish a few rules about what it looks like."

"What's the motivation? On either side, why _wouldn't_ I kill him? Or him, you?"

"Because of James," she answered. Her head lifted from his shoulder and she stroked two fingers along his throat. "Because I have James, and then because he has all the answers about the regimen that you might need. Do need."

"But the regimen is just - that's shit we can _handle_. I can handle it. I don't need-"

"But what if James does?"

Castle felt struck.

His head dropped back to the mattress and he stared up at the ceiling, the tiny cracks spiderwebbing out, suddenly visible in the fierce afternoon light.

She laid down at his side again, but this time she was curling in tight against him, arm across his ribs and hugging him hard. "It scares me too, Castle. It scares me what we're bringing him into."

_He's going to find out anyway._


	3. Chapter 3

**Close Encounters 18**

* * *

Kate Beckett had been trapped for the last six weeks - over a month - inside an apartment that hadn't been hers, with a cover story that felt exposed and a husband who chafed just as much at the imprisonment. While Castle got to abandon ship and sneak out with the dog, go to work, build them a defense, Beckett had been left inside.

Cabin fever was putting it mildly.

And yet, after her husband had a panic attack in the market so fierce they both had thought it was a heart attack - she wasn't about to leave him. She stayed right at his side, lying down with him in the master bedroom, fingers in his hair and her mouth pressing a perpetual kiss against his shoulder until she felt his heart rate ease and drop to normal.

But she knew she was right. They had no guarantees when it came to John Black - he wanted her dead. And now that she was pregnant, it put everything in peril.

Even if she weren't pregnant, she knew Castle would be afraid - she knew that. She'd seen his face when he'd come into the court yard on the island off the coast of Tunisia; she knew how completely terrified he was to lose her. She was terrified of losing him - it worked both ways.

But like she'd said, circumstances had changed. It wasn't just about the regimen to keep Castle alive; they had to consider that, given how her body was responding to the supplements, their child might need the science behind the regimen one day. He might need to know, he might need to be saved one day - what if he was born and his red blood cells wouldn't work? What if...

So many things to go wrong, and she just wanted to give them both - Castle and James - she wanted to give them the chance to be a family, to know and love and be content. She'd do anything for them, and the fact of it, the truth of it, was a heavy weight in her arms.

"I love him already," she said into his neck. "Don't you? I love him so much."

"Yes," Castle rasped. He didn't even ask who. He rolled onto his side and wrapped his arms around her. "But I love you, Kate. It's not worth it without you. I love you and this is... awful."

"Oh, but... it's not," she whispered. "I want you to see how wonderful this is. We can build on this, sweetheart. We can make something else come from what's been a lot of really... fucked up relationships. If we can just get your father to talk, to compromise, I know this will work."

She knew that the alley flashed in front of his eyes, the scene in the court yard, so many instances where she'd nearly died. But she saw something else; she saw the man behind the evil - still just a man. Black had been building something in his son, and that alone gave her hope. She saw their future, and it was one of possibilities - they could do this.

And if, if not, then she knew Castle would do everything in his power for their son. He would have James and it would all work out. It wouldn't be okay, but he'd survive, and he'd love James, and James would love him and her two men would spend long weekends at her father's cabin and they'd figure it out.

Yes, it hurt to think of them alone, hurt to imagine missing out on how good a father he was going to be, but she'd been preparing herself for this since the moment she'd known she was pregnant. She'd shored up her defenses to the idea of it and now she could function within that possibility without absolutely losing it.

She could give Castle the time he needed to come around too. She could wait for him; she was still choosing the better way.

"Your mother thinks it's a girl," she said quietly.

Castle choked on a laugh, his arms tightening briefly before he finally let her go. "She's - that's Mother. Never right."

She gave him a curl of lips in response. "She wants to baby-sit."

"Not a good idea," Castle muttered.

"She'll be fine," Kate said. "She's been calling me, did you know that?"

"I knew a couple times while we were stuck at the apartment."

"We talked every week," she told him. "I like her. She's divorcing this guy, you know."

"No," he sighed. "Did she say what happened?"

"I think he... I'm not sure he's really that good of a guy."

Castle stiffened; she knew that would get to him. He might not adore his mother, but he had once. He had once been a little boy in love with his beautiful mother, and that part of him was the same part of him that Kate had fallen in love with first, the lost little boy.

"He's not hitting her," Kate said clearly. "But he's verbally..."

"Are you - you're just now telling me this?"

"She's getting clear of him. We talked. I think it might have been my fault - the divorce - and she asked me not to tell you. And honestly, Castle, I'm sorry, but a lot was going on and she had it under control."

He sighed and rubbed his hand down his face, both of them still lying on top of the covers, neither of them able yet to get up and face the world. She didn't mind; their second honeymoon was supposed to be a cocoon.

"It's her third," Castle said. "I don't want her to be unhappy but I don't understand it. She can't just _stay_."

Oh, her poor husband. He had issues that he didn't even realize. Kate leaned in and kissed him softly. "I want her to meet my dad."

"_What?"_

She laughed and shook her head, pushing back from his chest. "No, not like that," she chuckled. "I just mean, I want them to know each other. I think your Mother would feel more a part of things if she had those connections. They can be excited about being grandparents together."

"Your dad could only be a positive influence," Castle grumbled, but he had a smile cracking through. "I really love your dad."

"He really loves you."

Castle grinned now, closed his eyes as he wriggled in closer to her. He was so different from her; Castle had a much easier time of letting things slough off him. He didn't carry it like she did. He felt it the same, of course he did, but he had this natural and almost blindingly cheerful optimism that she'd never expected. He just _knew_ things would go his way and he acted accordingly.

"Like you think your dreams are all going to come true," she murmured, chuckling softly and leaning in to kiss his forehead.

"Have you seen my life? My wife is hot, I'm a covert _spy_, and we're having a baby. My dreams _do _come true."

She laughed, felt it filling her now too, that relentless sense that good things were happening, and she rolled on top of him, knocking him flat to the mattress. "How about we make some of my dreams come true?"

Castle grinned and slid his hands up under her shirt, taking it right over her head.

She leaned down over him, hands on his shoulders, and kissed him like she did in dreams.

* * *

She'd stayed inside with him for the afternoon and now the evening stretched long shadows across the pool and came inside the living room. He was grateful in a way that was pathetic, but she hadn't even suggested leaving the villa.

She _had_ insisted they swim in the infinity pool, but he could be reconciled to that; their terraced backyard sat on the highest hill with only a footpath down to the beach that was guarded by gated access.

He was paranoid, but it was for good reason.

Kate was making them dinner - peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on local bread they'd picked up before his panic attack had cut short their market day. And still his wife said nothing about getting out, nothing about how they couldn't live their lives this way, nothing about how she'd spent the last six weeks stuck inside a tiny apartment.

So Castle swallowed down the rational fear - and the irrational - and he came up behind her at the kitchen counter, put his mouth to her ear for a soft kiss. "Want to go for a walk after dinner?"

She vibrated with it, the need to get out, and he nudged his nose in against her neck when she seemed to hesitate.

"I know you do," he murmured.

"But you-"

"I can handle me," he assured her. "And staying in this afternoon has helped."

She turned her head into his cheek and kissed the corner of his mouth. "I don't want to push it. I've been there; I know how it feels."

"But you do want out," he reminded her. "And for some reason, it's better now that it's dark."

"Better?" she laughed softly.

"Better," he promised, another kiss against her lips, lingering. He spread his hands at her waist, rubbing through the material of her shirt, and the certainty grew and spread, shored him up.

"Okay," she said quickly. Her hand came up to cup the side of his face, bringing his cheek to hers in a warm touch. "But you tell me when you're done. Tell me the moment it gets uncomfortable."

"I will," he said. He wouldn't. He'd only tell her if it was absolutely necessary, but she probably knew that too.

He nuzzled a last kiss down into her neck and then released her with a squeeze. "Finish my sandwich, woman."

He got an elbow to the ribs before he could move away, and he laughed even as he dodged her retaliatory fingers.

* * *

He'd been right; the darkness made it easier for some reason.

They held hands and walked down the ragged trail to the beach below, their way lit only by stars and a half moon. The slope was mostly clay and beach grasses, the silty sand clinging to their shoes, and Kate came down behind him, her fingers relaxed between his.

At one point, just before they reached the beach, she leaned into him for her balance, and the pressure of her body against his back was some kind of release valve. The tension dissolved and his fear slipped back under the surface where it belonged.

When they got to the soft, still-warm sand of the beach, they stood quietly for a moment at the base of the hill watching the water in the bay lick at the shore. He felt the skittering of a tiny crab across a toe and he laughed, filled up with how the moon shone from the water where it had drowned.

"I bet he has your birthday."

Kate turned her head to him; he could see the movement out of the corner of his eye. "I don't think he'll wait that long," she said back.

"It's only two days after you're due."

She hummed something - maybe agreement, maybe just acknowledging that he'd spoken - but she didn't say anything more to it.

"Be fun though. Celebrating both birthdays."

"I still don't believe you when you say your birthday is April Fool's," she said suddenly.

Castle laughed and tugged on her hand to get her moving, heading down the beach towards the water. "It is. Didn't you ask my mother for confirmation?"

"I have a feeling she'd back you up on that one no matter what."

"You think so?" he cut back. It gave him a funny feeling, thinking that his mother might actually perpetuate a hoax with him, like they were conspirators. Like he could trust her.

"She would. She has a good sense of humor. You guys might be playing a trick on me."

"For April Fool's," he said. "Well, guess you'll never know, will you?"

"I swear I'm going to unearth your birth certificate," she muttered. "It will turn up. He hasn't destroyed all of them."

He paused and she stopped, came back into him with her arm snaking around his waist, body close, trying to comfort him for something he didn't know he needed comfort for.

"Sorry," she whispered. "I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought him up."

"No, it's not that," he chuckled, dropping a kiss along her temple. Her skin was as pearly as the moonlight. "I was just thinking about this kid's birth certificate."

"Oh." She loosened her hold on him. "Oh, I hadn't thought about that."

"Me either - until you said it. Do we file?"

"If he ever wants a _job_-"

"Yeah, but that can be created later. Real enough, since it'd be CIA-issued anyway."

"But that doesn't _feel_ very real. I don't - do _you_ feel very real? Or did you, I mean, before we met? When you were a man who'd invented his own history, who didn't even know his father's real name?"

"I still don't," he muttered. "And - no. Okay. There's something about having the paper."

"You were hell-bent on filing our marriage with the state, remember? I can't imagine why you'd want to keep our kid from having a birth certificate."

"Yeah," he sighed. "I just - safety reasons. But no, I don't want him to think he's not real, not important. Faceless."

He realized, even as he said it, that those had been his own feelings. He still didn't know his father's real name.

She took his hand once more and pulled away, heading above the water line where the waves raced upward. He followed, still churned up over the idea of his son being a matter of public record. And yet, to _not_ be meant denying his existence, and he didn't like that either.

"If we told your father," she started hesitantly.

"Yeah, I see the point," he said bleakly. If they told him, then they wouldn't have to hide their son's existence from the world.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" he sighed. "It's not your fault."

"I - you know I feel like it is," she said cautiously. "Working on that - always working on that - but I'm sorry for you, Rick. You deserve better; I wish it were easier."

"Honestly, Kate - even with the panic attacks and the awful choice in front of us - I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't _not_ have him. Would you?"

"No," she said. "I want him. I want him for us, for _him_. Remember how fast his heart was beating on the monitor?"

"127 beats per minute," he said quickly, remembering. Dr Dennison had brought a handheld ultrasound - a piece of crazy-fancy technology, even for a spy - and of course, Castle had spent most of that appointment messing around with it. But the moment they'd heard their baby's heartbeat, that fast and steady tempo, it had arrested all of his attention.

"That was the day," she said.

"The heartbeat?"

"Yes, hearing him. His heart working for me. For us. It's not that I was ambivalent before, but that made him real."

"That's when I knew he was a boy," he admitted. "I mean, obviously not official, I know, but it was him."

"God, this kid is going to be so screwed if he's a girl."

Castle laughed and brought the back of her hand up to kiss. "We have how long before we know?"

"Well, we could find out in Rome, if we wanted."

"At twelve weeks."

"Dr Dennison gave me the name of a woman in Tivoli, just outside Rome. She'll be discreet, and she's already promised to send us home with the chart - she won't even keep copies."

"Wow."

"They're good friends. Something about a week in Paris during a residency in London. I don't know - she seemed reluctant to tell me the story." Kate shrugged and he found himself enraptured by her eyes in the darkness and the moonlight, the shadows that caressed her face.

He was getting maudlin, and he knew it, but he wouldn't make her go inside. "Tivoli could be a good name for a boy."

She laughed, her head turning quickly to him. "No."

"I'm just saying."

"His name is James."

"Yeah, but I picked that without really asking you."

"You _dreamed_ it," she said. "And I like your dreams, Castle."

"What if it really is a girl?" he said, wincing.

"Then I'll pick without asking _you_," she shot back, arching an eyebrow in triumph.

He laughed and leaned in to kiss that raised brow. "Only fair." He found his fingers tangling in her hair like he couldn't let go, a flicker of unease at the sudden roar and rush of the water. He shifted her higher on the beach, away from the waves, and made himself let go of her.

"Come on," she tugged, her fingers splaying out at his hip, letting go of his hand to frame his waist. "Let's go back before it's too much. I don't want to ruin it."

"I'm fine. We can stay out."

"You're not," she whispered, a breath against his neck as she hugged him loosely. "I can see it on your face. Feel it in your body. Now _your _heart is 127 beats per minute."

"Not really," he groused.

"No, but close enough." She nudged him back the way they'd come, and he felt it then too, the tension that snaked under his skin, the blood that pulsed in his hands and feet as if he might have to act quickly.

So he let her lead them back up the path along the hill, and he promised himself - and her - that he'd do better. He'd figure this out - how to keep them safe.

He didn't want his father to know, but he couldn't see a way around it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Close Encounters 18**

* * *

Beckett nudged him carefully into the bedroom, her hands at his hips, his shoulder, his back, guiding by touch. He had been so good on the beach; she wanted to get him in bed before he could spill over the edge into a panic attack. She knew how that felt. So she started to talk to distract him.

"In Tunisia," she said softly, lightly pushing on his shoulders so that he laid down on the mattress. He was so compliant, so under her spell, that he didn't seem to notice that he'd lasted all of forty minutes outside. "I realized that just because you'd do anything for me, didn't mean I was allowed to make you."

"What?" he murmured, his eyes on her every movement. She skimmed her fingers over his hips and down his thighs, tugged a little at his pant legs before she got to his shoes. "You're allowed."

"No," she said, shaking her head. She pulled off his deck shoes and dropped them over the side of the bed, pressed her thumb into the arch of his foot.

He grunted and squinted his eyes shut, so she settled down with his feet in her lap, the toes of one foot tucked under her arm as she massaged the other.

"I'm not taking you for granted any more," she explained softly. "I won't keep pushing you past your limits just because you love me enough to forgive me just about anything."

His eyes opened and his fingers unfurled at his hip as if reaching for her. "Just about? I'd forgive you anything, Kate. Not 'just about' - but anything at all."

She cupped his foot, absorbed the intensity and the seriousness with which he'd made that statement - and then she used her knuckles to dig into his arches.

He grunted and his foot jerked; she loved how responsive he was to her, even in this.

"Even so, it's not fair of me to keep doing it to you. So I made myself a promise that I wouldn't push the small things. I wouldn't until it was absolutely necessary. And Castle, it is not necessary that I stay outside."

"But for six weeks-"

"I know," she said easily. "But it wasn't my choice to be under house arrest. This is my choice. We'll stay inside and we'll rebuild - both of us - we'll put ourselves back together again."

"You're not sleeping much," he noted.

"Not much," she admitted. He already knew that. "Although... Boyd's supplements have helped."

His eyes opened and he stared down his body at her. "They have?"

"My sleep is deeper, more restful. I have dreams but they don't wake me until after I've had at least four hours."

"You should be getting more than that," he murmured.

"Probably so," she gave. "And that's what this time is for. We were forced out of the country, but we needed the break anyway. So we're taking it easy."

"But part of how you rebuild - I know you - actually _is_ going outside, Kate. You need to run, you need the space. Don't let me take that from you."

"That's true, but I can be smarter about it. You can come with me on my run; we'll spend time de-stressing you too."

"This is doing a pretty good job of it," he said, a little smirk flirting with his lips.

She knuckled deeper into his arch and it made him jerk; he let out a hissing breath and gave her a look for it. She picked up his other foot and started in on the knots there as well. His toes curled and waved at her, made her smile, and he nudged his other foot into her ribs, trying to tickle her.

She wasn't ticklish, but she liked him playful.

"Tunisia was good for us," he said.

She froze.

"I'm serious," he laughed. "Don't look like I'm trying to trick you. It was good for us. We got a lot of shit cleared up and taken care of, and now I know better what you need from me."

"I should've talked to you more," she said softly. "Tried harder."

"Yeah, but I should've listened. So we're both at fault. It happened."

"You amaze me," she muttered, shaking her head.

"I what?"

She dropped his foot and crawled up between his legs, laying over him, her hands in fists on his stomach so she could prop up her chin. "The way you let it slough right off you. I can't do that. It lingers."

"Just personality. And I had to, growing up. You know that."

"I know. So much so that you don't even seem to care about what he did to you all those years, how he treated you."

"He raised me," he said carefully. There was an undone shrug in his shoulders, a casualness unvoiced.

"I think you hate him," she said. "But I think you hate him for _me_. And I don't hate him, Castle."

"I hate him plenty enough for me," he growled.

She climbed back up to his chest, sat down right at his side so she could stroke her fingers along his bicep. "For what he did?"

"For what he's _done_. For that day in the airport when he came up to you and told you that you weren't good enough for me and you believed him because we still thought - because he was my father and why would he ever..."

"I believed him because I thought... I thought, deep down, that I couldn't possibly be what you deserved."

"You know that's crap."

She titled her head and gave him a smile. "I know it's crap. I deserve you - every bullying, intractable, stubborn bit of you, oh yes, I deserve it."

"That somehow doesn't sound as marvelous and grand and generous of me as it should."

She laughed then and leaned in to kiss his lips. She felt the ripple of his bicep under her fingers and sat up again. "How grand of you," she whispered. "But I don't think it's worth it to hate him. Not when he - in a twisted and pathetic way - he loves you."

"That's not love."

"No. It's not. But it's something."

"It's obsessive and wrong and it sucks." He huffed on the last word, but he wasn't riddled with tension like he had been down on the beach. He could talk to her about it when they were safely tucked away.

"It sucks," she agreed. "But I don't - there's some mercy in it, Castle, that I feel I need myself."

He glared at her. "What does that mean?"

"We're both twisted up, you know. You and me. I've always found comfort in that - knowing you were as obsessive as I was when it comes to us. I can't - can't get over you - in the most basic and necessary way. And I know it's the same for you, so it makes it okay. It's relieving to know that I might be dark and broken and damaged, but - but so are you. In different ways, yeah, but it makes us work. Really well."

"We have intensely hot sex," he agreed readily, grinning up at her. She rolled her eyes, but _that_ was true too.

"I just feel that when we're... when not even _we_ can figure out how to love without damaging each other, without doing damage - like Tunisia - then condemning your father for how he loves you..."

"It's not the same."

"It's not. But it looks similar."

He didn't like that, and she knew it, but she felt like she had to make a case for the one man who had actually _wanted_ her beautiful husband, the one person who would be as reckless and non-stop and all-out as she would when it came to Castle's life.

"Our priorities are different," she said, "but sometimes not our methods. And that's humbling."

Castle lifted up and wrapped his arm around her and dragged her down over him. "No. No, Kate. This isn't even close to the same."

But it was.

* * *

He woke her for the morning run, prodded her out of bed even though it defeated his second goal to make her get more sleep. "Shoes, Beckett," he said, throwing first one and then the other at her. She caught them, barely, and made faces at him, but he was already dressed and ready to go.

He had set the alarm on his phone so she wouldn't conveniently oversleep and thus 'protect' him; they could run together on the beach without him losing it. He was determined.

"I gotta take my pill," she said, shoving him out of her way as she headed down the hall. He came after her, catching her around the waist, hustling her down the hall too fast so that she yelped and clutched at his arms. "You're in some mood, Richard Castle."

"I wanna run," he said. Half-true. He wanted to be with her and he wanted her to be able to rebound from these last couple months as well. She was dragging her feet just to be recalcitrant, trying to elbow him away.

He picked her up, sweeping her off her feet and hauling her into the kitchen, settled her on top of the counter. She was laughing, but it was an annoyed laughter; she wasn't able to put up with his macho shit in the morning quite as easily.

"I'll tone it down. You gotta eat before?"

"Bread," she said. "Eat when we get back - after I shower. I can't run on a full stomach."

"But you can take the pill on an empty stomach?" he said, surprised.

"Yeah, not a problem. Oh, the pre-natal I can't - makes me sick. But I'll take that with breakfast."

"No, I know. I meant - I can't take the supplements without having food with it." He pulled the wrapped bread from the fridge and handed her a slice, kept one for himself to make into toast. "Usually had the supplements with dinner. Always when I got back from a mission, that night."

"Really? No, it doesn't hit me like that. I - okay, this is going to sound weird, but I am _starving_ until I take it in the morning. I feel like I - no matter how much I ate the night before, no matter how solid the meal was, I always wake hungry."

"The baby?"

She shrugged. "I guess so. Needing those nutrients."

"The supplements don't - I mean, I guess I've never had that happen. I've been hungry, but it's not like they make me _not_ hungry. That seems... weird."

"I know," she said, grinning. "But it makes sense. Dennison said my body craves what it's not getting enough of - like when I couldn't get enough bananas and I made you go out like five times?"

"Your potassium levels were off," he said, frowning as he waited for the toaster to finish. "That was before you started taking the supplements, while we were locked up."

"And that was one of the reasons why I started," she reminded him softly. She was eating her bread plain, no butter or anything, but the crust first, tearing off sections as she did. "But I mean, I think the reason I'm starving is because I need it. My body, the baby - needs what's in those pills. So I crave them."

"You _crave_ them?"

"Well, somewhat," she hedged. "The bread isn't cutting it."

"It's bread," he laughed. "A slice of bread is not going to cut it for anyone."

"For me, it would. Normally. But I'm still - ravenous, Castle. When I say I'm starving, you know that I know what I'm talking about."

He flinched. Starving in those caves in Russia. "Shit. I - okay."

"I'm shaky with it. I can't even take a shower before I take the pill."

"That isn't helping me feel _better_ about you taking them," he muttered.

"But it should," she said quickly. "It should because it's obvious to me that it means I need it. It means that James needs it, Castle, and it's a good thing we have it. I can't imagine what would happen to me if I didn't have the supplemental nutrition."

Maybe so. "That's... kind of scary, Kate. That this... that it takes so much."

"Babies suck you dry," she laughed.

He flinched. "That-"

"Sorry, no, my mom used to say that." She shook her head and she had that far away look in her eyes, like she was seeing something he didn't. "She said _your kids will suck you dry_. I think because she had like six cavities after I was born because I took all the calcium out of her bones. Something like that. Funny, I'd forgotten all about that."

Well, he _had_ read that in the book, about the mother's nutrition needing to be maintained so carefully because the baby would take whatever nutrients were available. "Sounds like you picked up a jungle parasite," he sighed.

Kate laughed and pressed her hands to her stomach. "Oh, no. Daddy didn't mean that."

As soon as it was out of her mouth, they both were struck dumb by it - how _real_ it was. Castle was someone's _father_ and what he said and did would have consequences for his son.

The toast popped up in the toaster but Castle ignored it and stepped between her knees, wrapped his arms around her waist to bury his face against her stomach.

"I didn't mean it," he whispered. "Didn't mean it at all."

Kate combed her fingers through his hair, her legs wrapping around his hips and pulling him in tight. "I love you, but your toast is getting cold and I need that pill. Let me go, love, and get me some water."

He turned his head and kissed her wrist, finally let her go.

* * *

Their first week in Cyprus passed slowly, like there was some other place they ought to be, like they were being held back from some important event. She was surprised when it was Monday morning again and Castle was nudging her to get moving and she was eating the last of her toast as they started out the door for the beach.

Castle had, in the past seven days, actually gotten better. It took some TLC for him, but he came out of it much faster than she ever had. He had _fun_ too, which always surprised her, just how goofy a man he could be when he felt secure and loved and happy.

Not for the first time, she wondered how different his life might have looked if his mother had raised him.

He wouldn't be hers, of that she was certain - he'd be too well-rounded, too normal, too happy for her to ever feel comfortable enough to let down her guard and accept what they might have.

But she could see those pieces of him now, catch the edges of what normal might have looked like, and she was so grateful to have it like this with him now - whatever their normal meant.

After their run, Castle would make them breakfast while she showered, and then it was usually something lazy by the pool, lounging, her feet in the hot tub while he sank in and let the tension melt away. She envied him the hot tub - she really did - but she usually wrapped her legs around his neck and teased him, brushed her foot along his inside thigh or scraped her fingers through his scalp. They would talk, swap stories about how the supplements made them feel or the best memories of their childhood or what they remembered about their mothers.

They traded scar stories and she told him about the Police Academy, while he regaled her with awful, hilarious stories from his time in the service. They talked about the baby, but not in specific terms, and the subject would be introduced obliquely, sneaking up on them. It was Castle's job to read the books and then tell her what he'd learned, because he always made it into a story, and somehow that made it easier.

And then they usually wound up making out.

And then bed for a siesta.

Sometimes it was nearly four before they got up again. When they did, it was Castle pushing them outside - sunbathing on the private beach, walking into town for an early meal, one night dancing at a bar to some kind of European rap that made them both laugh.

Two weeks were gone when she realized they were having _fun_.

On the Monday of their third and final week, she rolled over in bed and slid on top of him, woke him up with a kiss. Among other things.

He was grinning up at her, sleepy and cute, and she rested her cheek on his chest. He brushed his hands up and down her back and hummed something appreciative against her temple.

"What a pleasant way to wake up."

"Much better than getting a shoe thrown at your head," she muttered.

He laughed and squeezed her shoulders. "Was that a consolation prize?"

"Consolation prize?"

"For the fact that it's Monday and we've got to get back to work."

She laughed, biting her lip, but he had her. "Um. I guess that is exactly what it was. How did you know?"

"It's Monday. You're always like this on a Monday at home."

"Yeah," she sighed. "I'm - ready to dig into it. We still don't know who the mole is - or how many of them there are. Esposito has been sending me updates-"

"I thought so," he laughed softly. Such a change from when they first arrived, how much easier it was for him now. "You're restless and you've been coddling me, and now it's time to coddle you, Kate."

"_Coddle-"_

"By throwing ourselves into the work. That's how we make you feel better. I know you."

She grumbled but he was right; the work was constantly on her mind. "It's just that Bracken died a damn _hero_ and I'm so frustrated that we're not there to do damage control. Espo said Mitch has it under control with his girlfriend, but there are the field operations still too."

"Mason is in charge of ops while I'm gone."

"And we all know Mason is a hot-head," she muttered.

Castle laughed again. "Well, could be true. Though Mitchell mutters that about me too, you know."

"Because he saw you in Germany when you tried to get back to me," she said softly, smiling at him. "My hero."

"Damn straight."

She lifted her chin to kiss him, making it sweet because he deserved it. Then she slapped his chest and scrambled off of him, right out of bed. "Come on. Time to coddle me."

Castle groaned and grumbled as he got out of bed, but she could tell he was ready for it too. Throwing herself into the work would give her a feeling of control again, shore her up to face whatever plan Black had for them next.

And even though Castle would rather hunker down and ride out the worst of the storm in their panic room, she knew he would be better for the work as well.

"Hey," he said, catching her by the wrist as she moved for the kitchen - and her pill.

"Yeah?"

He grinned and rubbed the back of his hand over her abs, his eyes intense. "I can - there's - it's not _really_ noticeable, but there's definitely something there."

She pressed her hand to her stomach and sucked in a breath, caught his gaze with her own.

There was - something, alright. A rise. A slope.

"Shit, here we go," she said, a little breathless. "Only get bigger from here on out."

He laughed, leaning in to kiss her. Rough and excited, and his teeth nipped her bottom lip. "You say that like it's a bad thing, Kate Beckett."

"Rodgers," she murmured, a lift of her lips. "Beckett-Rodgers-Castle."

"All of those?"

"I want them all."

And then he groaned. "What the hell is James going to do for a last name?"

* * *

"I think my idea is best," she said.

"Of course you do. It's your idea," he grumbled. But he took the laptop she handed over and sat down on the chaise, dutifully entered his password into the database.

While he waited for it to load, he couldn't help reaching out and hooking his fingers in the waistband of her bikini, tugging down and popping it. She swatted at him but she sank down at his feet, sitting between his knees and wringing out her hair over the tile.

The pool shimmered in the warm sunlight; she looked like a Bond girl in her white, belted bikini with the metal buckle between her breasts. He knocked his knee into hers and she shifted to one hand, at ease like a cat.

"You in?" she murmured.

"Not yet. It's encrypted and it's bouncing around a bunch of servers."

She sighed and propped her chin on his knee, hooked her arm around his drawn-up leg. "It's a good idea."

"Maybe," he muttered.

"It's not Mitch."

"No, I know it's not Mitch."

"But it's someone."

He sighed and jiggled his knee to make her get off him, and she huffed but crawled up to lie down beside him on the wide, elevated chaise. She was wet from the pool and soaking him, but she was keeping away from the laptop. Her chin was pointy against his clavicle, and he couldn't help drifting a hand down to her hip and squeezing before he brushed his fingers along the rise of her stomach.

The rise, the slope, their little jungle parasite. Not yet a bump, not really. Just something.

"Stop it," she growled, knocking his hand away. "Unless you plan on helping me out down there, don't just caress."

He laughed and caught her eyes, but she was actually pretty worked up. So he stopped. He did lean in over her and kiss her roughly, sucking the chlorinated water from her lips, and she sighed and laid her head back down against him.

"Help you out down there later," he promised. "Right now, we gotta test your idea."

The connection finally went through and Castle opened a fresh query. His fingers paused over the laptop, trying to think of how to put it. The command language had to be so precise sometimes just to gather the right results.

"What?" she said.

"Trying to think. Remember when I first started looking into your mother's case? Before we knew about Coonan - that connection - I had this feeling. I knew that I knew the knife wounds, that it was familiar, and I had that to go on. Otherwise it's just such random guessing."

"So we can't do the query?"

"No, we can," he said. "I'm just saying that we're going to get miles of results like this."

"We've got time," she said.

Castle pointedly looked at the curve of her stomach. "Time is exactly what we don't got."

"Your grammar is appalling," she growled. "Put it in."

"How did this get so kinky?"

"I don't know what's worse," she muttered. "My levels of horniness or the fact that you just _encourage_ it."

"Why is that worse at all? I think it's awesome."

She laughed then, the sound of her amusement and happiness echoing in his ribs. "Yeah, I think it's pretty awesome too."

"Helps me forget that it's because of the regimen."

"Constantly having sex distracts you from the fact that I'm taking supplements?"

"Yes."

"If that's what it takes, Castle, I will willingly sacrifice-"

"That's not really funny," he growled, gripping her by the hip again. "I don't want you sacrificing yourself. We've talked about this."

"It was a joke," she said softly. Her kiss was just as quiet against his cheek. "Let's not undo all the work of the last few weeks." When she pulled back to look at him, she gave him a little smile. "Put it in, Castle. Let's get this started."

He sighed at her, but he turned back to the laptop and started composing the search query.

It was her idea, and this time he thought they might actually know what they were looking for.

There was a mole, and it wasn't Mitch, but they needed to know who.


	5. Chapter 5

**Close Encounters 18**

* * *

"No, listen," she argued. "Why would Bryce just disappear if he was the mole?"

Castle was doing that stubborn boy thing again where he hunched his shoulders and wouldn't look at her, but she knew it was because she was right.

"Castle," she said softly, choosing another approach. She shifted in the pool and straddled his lap, the water rocking as she moved. "Castle, sweetheart, I know you want it to be easy, all tied up, but Bryce disappeared long before some of this happened."

"But he could have-"

"I think he discovered something he shouldn't have and the mole got rid of him. We've never found his body."

Castle sighed.

"And," she continued. "We found the guy who killed Robert, my physical therapist, but Bryce disappeared right after that."

"He did," Castle admitted.

"So don't you think that's something to look at?"

"We've been over and over Bryce's work station, his computer history, everything. We've gone over Bryce with a fine-toothed comb, Kate. I don't see how focusing on him again is going to help. We have a narrow time frame here, and we have to know who's betrayed us."

"I know," she said calmly. "But we were looking at him as our mole. Not as an innocent man who maybe _found_ something."

His jaw worked and Kate snaked her hands down his arms, rubbing against his skin. She leaned in and kissed that tense muscle in his face, licked the rough growth of beard he had going. She knew that he'd stopped shaving every day because of her, because she liked it, and she wanted to show her appreciation.

She hummed and he grasped her hips, pulled her in against him. "Okay," he groaned. "Okay, we'll look at Bryce again."

"Differently. For _clues_ he might have followed."

"Yes, fine. For clues." He growled at her and gripped the back of her neck. "Now, come here."

She laughed but had to gasp as his fingers slid under her swimsuit. "Come here or just-"

"Just come."

* * *

"What've you got, Espo?"

Castle half-listened to Beckett on the phone with the Office as he mixed the espresso beans into the portafilter. He was making decaf for them both, though he hadn't told her it was decaf yet, and he was focused on getting the shot pulled while he also steamed the milk.

"What about Bryce?" she said over the phone. Beating a dead horse, he was sure about that, but they were at a dead end.

He played with the foam, swirling the milk and letting the nozzle surf the hole, concentrating on making it just right. She didn't 'believe' in decaf, she'd told him often enough, but he was going to fake her out.

He pulled the shot and swirled his steamed milk to get the bubbles out, and then he poured the frothy milk straight over the center of the cup. He kept it light, raised his hand as he poured, making sure he didn't cross the line into cappuccino. As he ended the pour, Castle pulled the pitcher away from his body and created a little heart in the foam.

He grinned. One decaf macchiato.

"Okay, thanks, Javi. Yeah, our flight leaves tomorrow morning."

Castle sighed; they weren't heading home yet. The NSA had kept them up-to-date on the team they'd assembled to find John Black, and while he didn't think they'd have much luck with what they had going, he wished they would. Because he wanted to take her home.

But Rome was good enough for now. They had a doctor set up in Tivoli; they'd go there first for her appointment, hopefully find out the baby's gender, and then they'd set up in Rome for a few weeks, see what happened with the team assigned to Black.

Kate came around his hip and leaned against him. "What's that?"

"Macchiato. For you."

She hummed and reached for the small cup, gave him an appealingly wicked smile over the rim. He tried not to give it away by studying her reaction, so he turned to make his own cup, using the last of the milk he'd steamed.

"Ug, Castle. This is decaf."

He growled and turned his head, ruining his perfect heart in the foam. "You _can't_ tell that."

"I can. I told you I can."

"But it's good, right?"

"It's... okay."

"No, don't humor me. That's depressing. Pour it out. I'll make you a real one. You haven't had any caffeine today, have you?"

"No, no, you don't have to."

"I will, come on. Dump it out." He reached for the cup, but she stepped away from him, laughing.

"No, I want it. You made it for me." She gave him a tender smile but she stepped away from him again, protecting the cup.

He raised his own macchiato and sipped it slowly; he wasn't the coffee aficionado that she was, but he thought it tasted the same.

She smiled at him again and reached out, fingers curling around his forearm like she wanted to hold on to him while she drank it. He watched her sipping her coffee, the tease in her eyes and the way she looked at him like he was everything, and he could hardly believe how lucky he was.

It was work; of course it was work. But she was amazing, and she loved him like he loved her, and she was willing to humor him about coffee and his issues and whatever else to make this work.

"Let's go out for dinner," he said suddenly. He'd kept her inside more than she liked and he knew it. "We'll go to that little place where we had the triantafyllo."

"The rose cordial," she hummed. "And the loukoumades."

"Wait, those were what again?"

"The fried dough in syrup," she laughed. "I know how you love syrup, baby."

Castle grunted. "Let's just say, I have an appreciation for syrup. And how it tastes off your skin."

She grinned even wider and came into him, wrapping her arm around his neck and cradling her cup of macchiato. "I can't wait. Our last night of honeymoon."

"Has it been everything you wanted?"

"And more. You treat me so well."

* * *

For dinner they had mezedes - which was like Spanish tapas - where the meal consisted of small portions of a wide variety of dishes. It also allowed Castle to eat things that Kate couldn't, but it didn't leave her without equally wonderful choices.

They started with black and green olives and humus, _skordalia - _which they learned had not been made with eggs - and a garlic dip that could all be eaten with fresh bread. Mixed salad completed the first session, and while Castle ate most of the food set in front of him, Kate was in raptures with the _skordalia_.

"It's garlicky," she apologized. "But it's so good."

"I like garlic."

She wrinkled her nose. "I guess if you eat it too, then we both taste like garlic."

"You've got some picky stuff going on with taste lately. Have you noticed?"

She gave him a surprised look and glanced down at the potato and garlic dip she seemed to have fallen in love with. "Oh. Maybe so."

He laughed and nudged the plate of bread over to her. "It's cute."

"I don't think cute is the right word. But are you eating the garlic?"

"Not if you don't want me to."

She gave him a pleading look and picked at the bread, breaking it apart. They were interrupted by the waitress who refreshed their drinks and came back with pickled cauliflower and octopus in red wine.

When the waitress left, Kate leaned in close. "Did she say octopus?"

"Yeah," he laughed, staring down at the dish. "Babe, look at it."

The octopus was served with onion and capers, black olives as garnish, but the legs were unmistakeable. The suckers were still attached.

She poked it with her fork and shook her head. "I can't have seafood. Darn."

"Oh, _darn_."

She laughed. "You can try it for me."

"I'm not-"

"Oh, come on. You always try food for me."

"Yeah, but it's stuff that _you_ have already eaten," he growled back at her. "This is different."

"I'd eat it now but I can't. Eat it for me. Come on."

Castle used his fork to lift it from the plate, glanced under the squiggly legs. "I feel like there are eyes hidden under there."

"Eat it, eat it, eat it."

"Are you chanting me on?"

She was grinning at him. "Do it for me. Do it for the baby."

"Oh, that's just not fair, Beckett." But he speared a chunk of octopus and pointed it at her. "I'm not doing it for the baby, because he takes after me and would never touch this. I'm doing it for you because you _totally_ would."

She laughed and her eyes were intent on his fork as he moved the octopus towards his mouth. He touched his tongue against it and was surprised to find the taste... not unpalatable. He put the octopus in his mouth and savored the strange texture and the red wine sauce, nodded slowly.

She sighed and put her chin in her hand. "I'm so jealous."

He swallowed and smiled softly at her. "I'll bring you back here. You and James both; we'll come back together. See if he likes it too."

Kate flashed him that full-teeth smile, dazzling and adoring. She reached out and caught his wrist, rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. "Love you."

"Love you back."

* * *

They took the Ryanair flight from Paphos to Athens, switched planes to fly to Rome. They picked up their new passports in the Athens airport from the locker number Espo had given her, and they moved quickly to hide their old passports in the false bottom. Kate flipped through hers and read the exit visas, memorizing them quickly, and then Castle took his from her hand.

"Switzerland?" she murmured. "We're both tan. That doesn't work."

"On the slopes," he said. "Snow reflects it back. It works."

She frowned but she supposed he was right. "Okay. We don't have gear though - nothing in my suitcase says ski slopes."

"The ski lodges themselves have everything we had at the villa - pool, all that. You could've sat out on the skiing, had hot chocolate and the heated indoor pool."

"Okay."

"What's wrong, Kate?"

She rubbed the edge of the passport and shook her head. "I don't know. Weird feeling."

"Well, we have a flight to Rome and an appointment in Tivoli. But say the word, Beckett, and we fly somewhere else entirely. We'll go wherever you want; we have the world before us."

"Except home," she sighed. Kate shook her head and tried to throw off the unease that had crept up on her. "Cyprus was a bubble, having our second honeymoon. Always funny when the bubble bursts. I'm sure that's it."

"The bubble?" he said quietly. He was so serious; he wasn't dismissing her. Really, the only time he'd ever dismissed her was about Black, and she had to remember that.

"I felt safe there," she shrugged. "Which is saying something. But I think it was a false sense of security."

"The villa has never been on the books," he said to her. His jaw was tight. "The place in Rome _has_. It's a CIA safe house. The villa was something I did for us, with my own money, and so it never went through the Office."

"Never went through him, you mean. No wonder it felt so safe." She gave him a tight smile, but she was finding her strength again. "It's Rome. We know it inside and out; it's our place."

He reached out and tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. "We do. We'll be fine. You ready?"

She nodded quickly, took the hand still caressing her hair. "I'm ready. On to Rome."

He held her back for a moment, brushing his fingers against her abs. "You took the pill today?"

Kate nodded, but even in the moment of affirming it, she paused. "I - I don't know. Did I?"

"You went running without me this morning. I made you coffee. We ate breakfast."

She felt her stomach drop out. "I don't - I don't remember."

"One day isn't going to hurt anything, right?"

She pressed her hand to her forehead and tried to think. "I don't know. I don't remember taking it. I just - forgot. It doesn't even register anymore. I usually take it right before our run - but my whole routine was off and I don't know." Could she not even do _one thing_ right? What happened to all that talk about craving it and being so hungry? Today she'd just been completely ignoring her body and what it was trying to tell her?

Castle took her by the arms and turned her around to get at her backpack, unzipping it quickly. "You're okay, Kate. It happens. I took them my whole life, and I forgot all the time. When you do it often enough, it becomes rote."

She took a shaky breath in and felt him rooting around inside for the bottle of pills she kept with her at all times. The supplement had been created by Boyd from the stabilizers and a kind of watered down serum. No mood stabilizers though; he'd told her there weren't any mood stabilizers in it, but now she wondered about the rest of it - how the other parts were affecting her. Was her unease due to missing a pill?

She could _feel_ Castle wondering about it too. "How did you know?" she said quietly, turning around after he zipped up her bag. He was shaking out a pill into his hand. "Castle, why did you think of it?"

"You said the baby sucks it out of you." He shrugged and held out the pill. "You just look like you're panicking over this - a simple change of venue - and I've never seen you like that before. So if the baby is taking whatever you've got - maybe you don't have enough to hold it together."

She let out a breath and took the pill from his palm. She nodded slowly and fingered it, wondered for the first time what exactly she might be doing to _herself_ taking these things.

Obviously Castle wondered, but he was keeping it quiet because she was so adamant about it, because the baby might need it.

She cleared her throat and glanced at him; she could see by his face that he knew she'd figured it out for herself, this fear that the pills would do her damage. "Buy me a water?" she said.

His shoulders slumped but he only turned her around again and put the pill bottle back in her pack.

"Of course," he answered finally. "We'll get you some water to take it."

He held her hand as they walked through the long rows of lockers and out into the main concourse. She realized her palms were damp with sweat and tucked the pill into the pocket of her jeans.

She hoped the pill would, actually, make her feel better - stronger - like it had for the last twelve weeks. She didn't like the creeping unease that she couldn't shake no matter how tightly Castle held her hand.

* * *

Castle took the phone call right as their flight started to board. Kate looked frustrated with him for making her wait; now that she was reconciled to it, she seemed anxious to get there.

"It's Ryan," he said, holding up a finger to her.

She sighed and came back to his side, antsy.

"Ryan, go ahead," he said into the phone.

"I wanted to let you know the moment we heard. Maine's been indicted on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit, plus aggravated assault and first degree kidnapping."

"Are you - _murder_? Who?"

"Bracken."

"But - no - but that's what Beckett - _why_ is Maine being held on murder charges?" he hissed.

Kate's face had gone white and she shifted like she might take the phone from him, so he pulled back from her, put a hand on her hip to hold her away.

"I don't know how they did it, but they're saying that Maine was on the original team that kidnapped her. That he was the mastermind, and Bracken had been called to this meeting in all innocence-"

"You're kidding me."

"What?" Beckett said, interrupting. "What's he saying?"

"And when the senator got there, Beckett was already defending herself, so it was like this huge _accident_-"

"You're not serious," he groaned. "How do they think this is going to fly?"

"It already has. People _want_ to believe it, Castle. They want their NYPD Detective _and_ their senator to be innocent. Maine is the perfect scapegoat."

Castle groaned and rubbed his eyes. "Thanks, Ryan. Anything else?"

"NSA is telling us that as soon as Maine is brought up on charges and the trial starts, Beckett can come back."

"When is that, you think?" he muttered.

"Actually, they're giving us a pretty firm timetable - about four more weeks."

By that time, Beckett would be sixteen weeks along and into the second trimester and definitely showing. Everything he'd read online made him think that for a woman as thin as Beckett, she'd be _noticeably _showing too - nowhere else for the baby to go.

"Agent Castle?"

"Yeah, yeah," he said finally. "Four more weeks, huh?"

"Yeah, that's what they're telling us."

He turned to Beckett now and lowered the phone. "Four weeks and then we're home," he told her softly.

She chewed on her lower lip. "And who's been charged with murder?"

"Maine."

Her eyes shut and she sighed, leaning her forehead against his shoulder. He cupped the back of her neck and rubbed at the soft hair there.

"Ryan, can you give Beckett the situation report on the rest of it?"

"Yeah, boss. You got it."

He handed her the phone and she straightened up, like he knew she would for Ryan. She took the phone and pressed it to her ear, sharp and crisp once more.

"Ryan, report."

He kept his hand on her nape and pressed a soft kiss to her temple.

The attendant called for their flight over the PA but it didn't matter; they had a few minutes to gain a little reassurance.

* * *

Their flight was uneventful, but Kate turned over the elements of the case in her mind, over and over again.

Ryan had said that Maine was being prosecuted for the 'accidental death' of Senator Bracken, but that Mitchell and his reporter were doing their best to get the truth out there. She took some small comfort in that, but she knew she had to maintain focus on the mole.

Someone was leaking information to John Black, and they had to plug that leak.

She turned to Castle sitting beside her, scratched her fingers at his forearm on top of the armrest. "Hey, you know what? If we tell your father about the baby, then we take the power of that information out of his hands. Knowing that he knows gives us at least that."

Castle sighed and tilted his head back. "Kate."

"I know, but we have to think about this. Convince me of the opposite, Castle. Tell me why I'm wrong."

"Because he hates you. He actually - I've never seen that man get emotional about anything, but you've managed to push him to a place that is - homicidal."

She flinched and released his arm. "Okay. Yes."

"If he thought I'd made the same mistake he did?"

"You mean knocking up a clearly inferior-"

"Kate," he sighed, a chagrined downturn of his lips. "That didn't come out right. It's not a mistake, far from it. But from his way of thinking, he's spent his whole life trying to correct that mistake - me - and now I've done the exact same thing."

"That is - actually - my point," she said quietly. "He took you. He wanted you. He wants you still. What do you think he's going to say about his grandson?"

"You gotta stop - shit, that is just..." Castle rubbed at his forehead and pressed his thumb and finger into his eyes, bowing his head. "I'm never going to like this."

"I know." She laid her hand back over his arm and quietly rubbed her thumb along the bones at his wrist. They were both sun-kissed and well-fed and rested after three weeks at their villa in Cyprus, and this was probably the healthiest they both had been in years. The pills she had, Castle on the regimen, the things they'd been through to get here - it was all coming together.

"The book says he's two inches," Castle said quietly. "Half an ounce."

Kate lifted her eyes to him. "The size of a small lime."

He shifted his hand out from under hers and pressed the back of his fingers against her belly.

Kate ran her hand down the inside of his arm and tangled her fingers with his. "The book I read says if you press here," she said quietly, pushing the back of his hand into her abdomen a little harder. "If you press in, he squirms at your touch."

"Oh, God," he whispered.

She smiled widely at him, felt it choke the back of her throat. Castle kissed her roughly, squeezing her fingers in his.

"You see?" he whispered. "I just - he's only a little lime."

"A significant lime," she said softly.

"The most significant," he smiled. "And he squirms against our touch? Then we can't let anyone else touch him."

She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder.

He might be right.

Telling his homicidal father about something so small, so easily hurt, was probably a terrible idea. She just didn't know what else to do.


	6. Chapter 6

**Close Encounters 18**

* * *

Castle sat on the hard plastic chair in the doctor's anteroom in Tivoli, watched the door through which Kate had disappeared. The doctor they'd met after-hours at the clinic was a small, gray-haired woman with a wiry strength, and her English was precise if heavily-accented.

He pressed his elbows on his thighs and checked his phone messages, keeping himself distracted while Kate was examined. She hated the hospital gown and she absolutely didn't like him being back there; she said she didn't want him getting medical things in his head when he looked at her.

Whatever. He'd really like to be back there.

Esposito was on some kind of tear, sending in field reports as he followed the Secret Service in their investigation. Castle didn't know what good it would do, but it was something at least. Ryan was providing support services as Espo's handler, but Castle sent Ryan a message asking him to also keep analyzing the traffic out of their office.

There was a mole. He wanted to shut that down fast - had to - before the pregnancy was noticeable. While he honestly hadn't expected his father to agree with his life choices, of course not, Castle _had_ expected to have gotten this under control before a baby came into the picture.

Timetable had been pushed up; he had to do this now.

He opened his contacts list and stared at the phone number a long time before he finally made the call.

There was only one ring on the other end before it picked up. "This is Agent Denver."

"Denver, it's Castle," he said quickly. "I want a seat on your NSA task force."

Denver was silent for only a heartbeat. "What changed your mind, Agent Castle?"

"I need my father out of our lives. He's going to kill her, one of these days. It's only a matter of time."

"All right. When you get back from your vacation, I'll put you on my team. Until then, we'll debrief you by video conference, pick your brain about methods of contact and possible locations."

"When - exactly - do you think we can do that? Get back from vacation."

"Now that you're on board with us, sooner rather than later. We have Maine taking the fall for this... debacle, and as soon as the trial is underway, we'd be glad to have you and your wife re-enter the States."

Castle bowed his head. "We're in transit at the moment. When we get to our final destination, I'll set up the video chat. You can pick my brain all you like."

"Very good, Agent Castle. I look forward to your service."

The call ended and Castle curled his fist around his phone, sank back against the chair.

Kate was going to be furious. But he _could not_ allow his father to terrorize them a moment more.

* * *

"Oh, wait," Kate said quickly. "Can we get Rick in here for this?"

Dr. Abruzzo gave her a glance as she rolled the ultrasound machine into place. "I can do that. Give me one second."

Kate propped herself up on her elbows, crinkling the sanitation plastic underneath her. She'd been able to change back into leggings and her t-shirt and ditch the hospital gown for this. She waited until the door opened again and then Castle was coming inside, a tight look on his face.

He leaned in and kissed her cheek, rather by rote, and she reached out and hooked her fingers in the collar of his t-shirt. "What's going on?"

"Tell you later. Not vital."

She had to trust that it wasn't, and so she laid back down against the slightly elevated head of the table. Castle sat down on a chair beside her, and she lifted her hand to bridge the distance between them. He took her fingers and kissed her knuckles, gave her a better smile.

"And now we start," Dr Abruzzo said briskly. She was a thin, strong woman who'd spoken only when necessary, but she was friendly enough, kept patting Kate's knee in compassion through every test.

"Everything okay?" Castle said.

She turned her head back to him and smiled. "Fine. Just fine. She's going to try to get a picture of the baby and if he's positioned right, we'll know for sure."

He leaned in and propped his elbows on the table at her shoulder. "You mean we'll have to start apologizing to the girl?"

"It's not a girl," she laughed softly. Her hand released his to curl at his ear and rub. "You know it's not."

"I know," he said easily. "Nice to have medical confirmation though."

Kate opened her mouth to say something else, but just then Dr Abruzzo spread the gel over her stomach and she was startled into silence. The cold shock of the gel - _not_ warmed up like Dr Dennison's always had been - made her turn back to the ultrasound machine, waiting for the picture.

The probing, flat head of the wand was a little more forceful in Dr Abruzzo's hands, but just like she'd told Castle, it caused a definite reaction on the gray and black screen.

"Whoa," he whispered. "Did you see that?"

"Yeah," she said, laughing a little.

"Can you feel that?"

"Nope, not at all. Well, I mean, I feel her pushing against me, of course. But nothing like that."

"That is so cool. Can you do it again?" he asked, and his eyes darted to Dr Abruzzo only once before being glued back to the screen.

"After I take measurements, I'll do that," the doctor answered. "Just one moment more."

"Measurements?" Castle whispered at her.

"They can detect birth defects," she said quietly.

"Oh."

"And height and weight and gestational age," Dr Abruzzo said quickly. "Not all bad. And if we are lucky, baby will turn just right for us to see a good look."

"I'm nervous," Castle admitted.

Kate laughed softly and reclaimed his hand, squeezing. "Me too. But the blood tests came back in our favor, and my glucose is right where it should be."

"Oh, look," Dr Abruzzo said. "Only one."

"Only - only _one_?" Castle yelped.

Kate laughed harder and saw Dr Abruzzo smirking at them. "Yeah, they have to check for that too. Calm down, Castle."

He narrowed his eyes at the doctor but he didn't seem able to maintain it; he kept staring at the screen. Without that squirm of movement like they'd first seen, it was difficult to tell where exactly the baby was.

Dr Abruzzo was making notations on the monitor, lines and marks, inputting information into the computer. Kate stopped watching the process and found herself entranced by the image on the screen.

Greys and even faint blues in the midst of the black sea.

"Those are the legs," Dr Abruzzo said. "See them kicking up. Like a little frog."

"Oh," Castle said softly. The cursor on the screen changed to an arrow and the doctor pointed to the right side of the display, and now it was unmistakable.

"This is the side view, but let me turn this around, see if we can't get at the bottom and look for a certain angle. Boy or girl, we'll see."

Kate had no idea what she was looking at now, and Castle didn't seem to either. They'd been avoiding the ultrasound videos posted all over the internet, avoiding a surfeit of information so that this would stay fresh, singular in their minds.

And so that they didn't freak out.

Now, because of all the not-knowing, she was a little freaked out.

"Yes, here we go. I saw it before, but I wanted to be sure. That is not the umbilical cord, see?"

"See?" Castle repeated. He glanced quickly to her but she had no clue. "What are we seeing?"

"You've got a son."

Kate choked on a laugh and missed every other word that came out of Dr Abruzzo's mouth. She could only stare at the image on the screen, at their son, safe and growing strong.

James.

* * *

"I'm going to revise your due date," Dr Abruzzo said, handing him the flash drive where she'd recorded the ultrasound video. "He's bigger than I thought, but everything in proportion, as it should be."

Bigger?

"I'll say now - mid-October. You look 14 weeks, not 12. I'm surprised the initial calculations were so off."

Castle didn't think Dr Dennison was that far off, actually. He glanced at Kate and she could see it on his face too, but she shook her head quickly at him, still wiping the gel from her stomach.

No point in bringing it up to a woman they'd never see again. "Thank you for helping us. And thank you for keeping it off your official charts."

"Not a problem. Things - I understand there are things that are precious. I'm just glad you're continuing medical care."

"Of course we are," Kate said quickly. She shrugged her shirt on over her head, the wide, loose garment that slouched sexily from her shoulders but also hid whatever pregnancy thickness might have started to show.

It wasn't a lot, but someone with a good eye might notice. Start talking. Rumors were just as damaging as the truth.

He pushed the flashdrive into the inside pocket of his backpack and put it over his shoulder, reached out to help Kate down from the table.

"You good?" he asked.

She smiled back at him. "Very."

He nodded and turned back to Dr Abruzzo, pulling the cash out and handing it over to her before she could protest. "We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Please accept this."

"No, this is-"

"Please."

"I didn't do it for euros. This is life. Life is precious. Don't-"

"Please take it. I have to be able to make some kind of repayment for what you've done for us. Because I still owe you - so much more than this."

Dr Abruzzo sighed at him, but her resistance faded. He closed her fingers around it and reached back for Kate. She took his hand and came with him quickly; they left the doctor alone in her closed clinic, heading out the door and into the night.

They walked quietly, lost in thought - in wonder as well - but his mind kept coming back to one thing.

"Mid-October is a month's difference from mid-November," he said.

"Dr Dennison already told me November 1st. Before we left. I... know it's got to be the pills."

"And my DNA in him," Castle said tightly.

She didn't respond.

His _son_. Growing fast.

"Kate."

"No, don't do that." She walked quickly, pulling on his arm until they were around the corner, and then she stopped him at a bus bench, pushed him into the seat. "Dr Dennison said that there are always gestational differences between every woman. Life takes time, Castle, but no one is ever exactly the same. She had a patient whose kids came sooner and sooner with each successive pregnancy. The fifth was born four weeks premature but was completely healthy - and already seven pounds."

"You guys have talked about this already," he noted. His heart ached. "You kept this from me?"

"I didn't - it wasn't a thing to keep. I'm pretty sure I told you it would be November, and you said my birthday, and I said, no, long before then."

He remembered a conversation about her birthday, but he could have sworn nothing else was attached. "I think I'd remember you telling me the due date had been revised by two weeks."

"Well, I did," she said flatly. "So stop looking at me like that."

He rubbed a hand down his face as she stood over him. "And what about you?"

"What about me?" she hissed.

"No, I mean - I'm not accusing you. I want to know if-"

"Well, you sound like you're accusing me of lying to your face, Castle. I don't appreciate that."

He stopped, swallowed. She was standing before him in the golden light of a streetlamp, the Tivoli night life flowing around them, tourists and natives alike, and she looked like a warrior ready to do battle.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I'm asking about you, Kate. How does this affect you? Is it - is he hurting you?"

She let out a rush of breath and sank down hard on the bench beside him. "Oh, God. No. No, I'm not hurt. He's fine. Good thing we have those pills for him, give him what he needs while he grows-"

"-so fast-"

"Maybe a little... super," she admitted finally.

He closed his eyes. "You think so?"

"I think... I think to survive what happened to me, Castle... I'm glad he is."

"Shit," he whispered.

"You remember the emergency room? He came out unscathed. Dr Dennison had a few ideas - she was the one who suggested we look into those pills of yours, see what they might be doing for you that could translate. She and Boyd have spent hours researching this stuff for us."

"I hadn't realized the extent, I guess," he said.

"I told you this." She stopped, looking away from him. "Well, I told you a well-rehearsed version of this. I didn't keep it from you, Rick, but I did use very careful language."

"I didn't - it didn't hit me. What you meant. That my DNA has made him-"

"Able to survive," she said quickly. "Your DNA _kept_ him. Kept him here when Bracken had me abducted and kicked around."

"Shit," he gasped. Kept him here, made him grow strong and fast. Why had he allowed himself to stick his head in the sand for so long? Was he just that selfish? He'd wanted this for them for so long and now there was all this. "How did I not get it?"

"Hey, stop it, sweetheart. You were looking out for me - keeping me safe against the world. Clearing my name. Getting me out of custody. That was important. That was good work. I was stuck inside for weeks, you know, and this was the only way I could help. So I handled it."

"Alone," he said. "Basically alone. Because I was too much of an ass to even _ask_."

"I wasn't alone," she said, taking his hand and dragging it into her lap. "You've had my back, and Castle - well, I had his."

He grunted and shot her a look; she was smiling at him, pressing their clasped hands together into her stomach.

"James," he said quietly.

"We have a boy," she grinned.

"Was it ever in doubt?"

"No," she smiled, a softer thing. Her lips came to brush his cheek. "It was never in doubt."

October 17th, they'd meet their son.

Castle had to make sure the way was clear for them.

"Kate, I have to tell you something." He turned his head to her. She froze.

"Something bad?"

"I don't think you're going to like it."

"What have you done?" she whispered.

* * *

The bus stopped in front of them and Kate stared at the driver for too long before she realized he was waiting on them.

"_No. Grazie_." She waved him on and the driver huffed, lifted both hands up towards the sky in that rude gesture the Italians did so well. The bus pulled away.

She turned back to her husband.

"And so - this team. What exactly is their mission?"

"To bring him in. Dead or alive."

Kate leaned in over her knees, elbows digging hard points into her thighs. "Dead."

"I wasn't thinking."

"Castle," she whispered, looking at him again. "We - we're going to _need_ him."

"I - but he wants to kill you. I can't keep walking this line, afraid of the snipers I can't see, the poison in every meal, the hired killer who approaches us on the street. That damn bus driver could have pulled out his weapon and killed you before I even had the chance to _move_."

"Which is why we _tell_ him. We tell him what's at risk here if he took action like that."

"So what? You're safe for nine months and then after that it's fucking open season? I can't do that."

"When that time comes," she said slowly, "we find a new deal. Something else to keep him from coming after us."

"He won't stop," Castle rasped. "And then we have a baby at risk too. What if he decides my having a family isn't on his plan? What then, Kate?"

"You're forgetting that your father was the one who _took you in_," she stressed. "If a family wasn't on his plan - if he didn't want a legacy, Castle, something to live on past him - then he wouldn't have done any of this. He wanted you - think of how he'd want James."

Castle lifted a grief-filled look to her. "Exactly. Oh, God, Kate, that's exactly - what if he wants James the way he wants me?"

She sucked in a breath and stared at him. She hadn't - that hadn't quite struck her yet. How his father might come after James just as fiercely, as cunningly, as he'd schemed for Castle.

"I don't want that," she said finally.

"I don't want anything to do with him, but if he doesn't leave us alone..."

Castle trailed off, leaving the threat unsaid, and she couldn't help remembering how he'd said the same about Bracken. That was Castle's last-ditch method for problem solving, although she'd be the first to admit that it was no longer, at least, his _first._

"But now this," Castle said.

Now... James. She reached out and took his hand. "And you, too, Castle. It's your blood, your DNA - something could happen to you because of this program of Black's, and then what do we do? What do _I_ do? I lose you and I..."

He nodded. "I know. I do know that." He hung his head, those broad shoulders up by his ears as he sat on the bench. "And now I'm on this task force to take him down."

He looked miserable. She let out a breath to relax, realized suddenly she was starving. They'd been traveling all day - and she couldn't have this conversation without food. "I'm calling a truce," she said.

"A truce?"

"Ceasefire, at least until we get to our place in Rome. Let's find something to eat tonight, and then get a cab, okay?"

"Ceasefire."

She laughed softly at the blank look on his face. "Dinner, Castle. Feed me. James wants authentic Italian. Come on."

He stood automatically, always ready to come to her aid, and she stood as well, their fingers laced together. Their conversation was paused, and they walked in silence, on the lookout for something to eat, ignoring all the other things simmering between them.

* * *

Castle shook his head, but Kate lifted an eyebrow in rebuke. She turned back to the waitress and asked for a house red. When the older woman had left, beaming at Beckett's selection, he lifted his own eyebrow.

"Not having wine with dinner - in Italy - Castle. You know better."

He dipped his head and winced, rubbing a hand down his face at the lapse. "I gotta get it together."

"You're okay - what partners are for." She reached out and brushed her fingers over his bicep. "But you'll have to drink from both glasses."

"I got your back," he smiled softly. The restaurant was some hole in the wall place: there were mostly natives seated around cozy tables, the tablecloths pristine white, the candles melted to stubs.

It was a fitting atmosphere for the news they were celebrating, for the way he'd kicked like a frog. For the gray wolf, the little elephant, all the things they'd named their son without having to actually face the reality of it.

Until tonight. James.

Their orders were placed but the restaurant was a good one and it would be a while; they'd have time to talk, if he thought he could face it right now.

He wasn't sure he could. "Mitchell said his reporter is pretty gutsy."

Kate gave him a look like she knew exactly what he was doing. "You meet her?"

"No. We're trying to keep out of it. Mitch is living with her though."

"He is?" Kate laughed. She sounded surprised. "I really thought he and Carrie would maybe..."

"No, I can't see that. He's living with her for her protection, he says."

"That's probably part of it," she snorted.

He grinned back, shrugged. "Did Ryan tell you about Mike?"

"Reynolds? Something wrong?" She sipped at her water slowly; it was a bottle they'd bought down the street at a corner store. She was sneaking it like an alcoholic, and he couldn't help smirking at her. She put the bottle back down by her side, gave him a narrowing of her eyes.

"Nothing wrong with him," he said. "He's been pulling shifts at the Office. Helping Mason run field ops. I don't think Espo knows what to do with him."

Kate smiled. "Do Espo some good."

He flickered a smile back at her. "Ryan is working on the traffic for us, but I don't know how easy it will be to find anything."

"I don't think we can," she sighed, leaning back against the booth. "I think it's - your father has a lot more experience and a lot more resources than we know."

Castle scrubbed at his scalp with both hands, frustrated by it every way he turned. He saw nothing for them to do to make it better either, no good solution.

Just one very bad solution.

Just then the waitress came back with their wine and settled the bottle on the table along with the glasses. Castle gave the woman a tight smile as she left, and then he poured one for each of them. He took a sip of Kate's first, a good healthy swallow after that, and then one more for good measure.

Kate laughed. "One of those days, huh, babe?"

"Wish you could join me," he said. "But we'll find a way to relax you when we get to Rome."

She grinned and leaned in to brush her lips against his jaw. "Oh? Is that a promise?"

"Give you my word," he murmured, turning his head into hers. She hummed at his ear, and he reached out his hand, slid his fingers under her loose shirt to the bare skin of her abs. He took a long breath and kissed the corner of her mouth. "Love you, Kate. So much. You're - amazing - doing all this for us."

"It's worth it," she whispered. "Whatever happens, Castle. I love you too."

It wasn't worth her life. Wasn't worth losing her. He couldn't pay that price.

* * *

The cab from Tivoli was expensive, but she thought maybe he was celebrating too, in his own way. She leaned against her husband for the whole ride, their fingers laced together on top of his thigh, the night air leaking in from the cracked windows. The driver was Greek, apparently, and listened to Albanian music that was turned down low, and the confluence of languages was soothing as they moved quickly through the streets.

Sitting down, she really _was_ showing. A rise where her intense fitness program and defensive training routines usually created a sharp, flat plane. It was shockingly noticeable to her way of thinking, and even Castle reached over and touched her a few times, as if it had hit him the same way.

She'd looked through some of those files that Castle had taken from the Congo installation - Congo 3 as it seemed to be named - and she'd found points of interest where the MKUltra project had originated from the BLK-AIT project. But nothing conclusively said, pointblank, that Black had tested on human subjects under the age of consent.

They knew he had - Castle was living proof - but Black had kept it completely out of the records. He had protected his son, he had kept Castle out of the official lists, and Castle was still alive.

She had to believe Black would do the same for James. Not just because she was desperate to believe her son would be safe, but because Black had a history of defending his own blood, had built a legacy around his name that now would extend to James.

She was holding on to that, she was claiming that as his birthright.

Castle brushed her temple with a kiss and stroked her hair behind her cheek. "The scars are fading," he murmured.

"Yeah," she answered.

He traced a line over her ear where Deleware's bullet had caught her but she knew it was gone now. The same for the places at her neck, even scars she'd had since childhood had been faded for weeks now.

"Anything else?"

"Besides being crazy horny?" she muttered.

He laughed, sounding surprised, but he didn't stop _touching_ her. "Is that a new thing?"

She laughed as well, glancing over at him. "Hm, might have a point."

"You said energy - you were buzzing. And you sleep pretty soundly-"

"Not long though," she offered. "Four hours at a time. I sleep hard, but I wake up immediately."

"I used to do that too," he answered. "And feeling buzzed - I don't think I'd have called it that, but I know what you mean."

"There's no serum in these pills," she reminded him. "It's a derivative."

"Yeah, you keep saying that."

"You don't believe me?" she said, sitting up a little. He gripped her hand and kept her from moving entirely away, and Kate saw the look on his face and relented. He was afraid. She knew that; she'd known that for a while now. But she'd never seen him quite so upset about his fear before.

"I've seen what the serum does - up close and personal - when you haven't had a history of it like I have. Maybe it's sheer luck that I never went crazy, maybe the training program my father started me on at five was what kept my mind so regimented and disciplined. Maybe-"

She pressed her fingers to his lips. "I know," she murmured. "It's nothing from the serum. Whatever black magic is in that, it's not touching me. Or James. It is only stabilizers, sweetheart. I promise."

He nodded and swallowed hard, and Kate shifted her hand to caress his jaw. He was worried about her more now than when they'd been running through the Congo, she thought, because this was something inside her rather than an act of nature out there. He could stop a hippo and catch her before she fell from a cliff, but he couldn't defeat her body.

"What happens after?" he asked.

"After what?"

"After he's born? What - does he still need this stuff, do we wait and see, do you - what do you need now? Are you stuck in this too?"

She chewed on the inside of her lip and dropped her hand. "I don't know. I - can't imagine that I would need it. Why would I? It doesn't do the work of changing; the serum does. As for James, we'll have to wait and see. I don't relish the idea of him being dependent on this stuff either."

He let out a long breath and she felt something in him ease, like he'd been wound too tight with questions he didn't have answers for and just getting them out there had been enough. Maybe it was, knowing that they were doing this together, side by side, no lies and no obfuscations.

"I promise you, Rick, that you will know everything I know. Okay? If something changes, if something happens, if the doctor's visit is good, bad, indifferent. I will tell you. I won't leave you in the dark, and I won't... fly off to Tunisia to confront your father."

He grunted and she thought there was grudging amusement in there, thought maybe he was hearing her and believing her.

Well, it was true. She wouldn't be tackling this alone.

"I promise," he husked. "I promise that I'm listening to you, Kate. If you're trying to change my mind, or you think we need to be doing something different, I'm listening. I'm not going to dismiss it, even if it's - even approaching Black. I won't dismiss it. We'll work out a compromise, okay? We'll figure it out."

"I know you are," she answered. She did know; she believed him. The Congo had taught them both some lessons, as well as leaving them with their little jungle parasite.

More than that, she was keeping his son safe and there was no way she was heading straight into the lion's den.


	7. Chapter 7

**Close Encounters 18**

* * *

Castle was behind his wife as they traveled through the narrow alley that led to their walk-up Italian apartment. The place was sandwiched between two homes on either side but it was worth the cramped space for a Roman courtyard and patio in back - plus the old stone and exposed wooden ceiling beams gave it an old world soul that they both could relax in.

He'd missed this place; they hadn't been back to stay since Russia.

"We should probably call Dr King," he told her, feeling the dew of late evening brush its fingers across his neck. An overhanging vine was creeping down the side of the building next door, and Castle brushed it off his back and kept following her.

"Yeah, you're right. I called him - um, four weeks ago? I don't think he was expecting me any sooner than once a month." She was mounting the steep steps to the front door, a hand on the stone railing.

"I mean for me, too," he muttered.

She shot him a look just as she pushed open the door, her eyes laughing indulgently at him, and he hefted their bag higher onto his shoulder and actually considered sticking out his tongue. He was about to do it too - they were walking into the dark entry hall and she wouldn't see it, but he'd know he was doing it - when instead he saw the faint red lights strung at intervals in the hall.

"Kate!"

He dropped the bag and reached out his arm to yank her backwards, but at that instant, the red lights began to blink and his father's voice rang out.

"I wouldn't move if I were you."

Castle froze, his arm hooked around his wife's shoulders, leaving her body entirely too vulnerable in front of him.

"Those are charges," she whispered. "I count... seven. Armed."

And through the hall to the back patio, he saw those same red lights.

"Four more on the sliding glass door," he murmured back, his eyes scanning their apartment. His father was a dark entity just beyond them, somewhere near the couch, and Castle kept his right arm around Kate and slowly reached for his weapon with his left.

"No, Richard. You're standing in a corridor of C4 charges designed to collapse the hallway and cut off the legs of the invading force. And I have a dead man switch. So stop moving."

He paused, but he kept his fingers at the butt of his weapon, began to ease it carefully and slowly from the holster. They were in equal darkness in the hall, the only light those red blinking indicators.

"You're the advance team?" Black snorted. "I thought for sure you'd send professionals. Not come in here with your damn _wife_."

"Advance team," Castle echoed, furiously searching through the darkness for some measure of advantage over his father. He needed to get his gun; he had to get to his gun. Keep Black talking. "That's right. We have two more squads moving into position."

Black snarled and the sound seemed to echo from everywhere at once. "I should have known you'd think of this place."

"Why are you here?" Kate said.

"Kate," he gritted out. Damn well didn't want her garnering his father's attention. He shifted for his weapon and hooked a finger around the butt.

"Richard. Stop. I will shoot her. I don't care one way or another."

He stopped. He stopped; he was stopping.

"Actually, why _don't_ I shoot her? Save us the trouble."

"Don't. Don't shoot her," he croaked.

"If you shoot me," Kate called out. "He will shoot you in return. You know he will. And then what happens? I die, you die, and that means the hallway blows, crushes him, and with us gone - he dies too. And then what? Your legacy is gone. All that work. Gone."

"He could survive it," Black said in the darkness, but his voice didn't sound firm.

"He could survive it only if you got him to the serum in time. But he'd shoot to kill, John. You know he would-"

"I'd sure as hell fucking kill you," Castle growled. "Don't you dare shoot her."

"Maybe it would be worth it, after everything," his father mused. "Maybe this is the end of it for me. I've done what I can to ensure your survival, Richard; I've given you all of it, from the beginning, and I think I've outlived my usefulness."

"No," Kate gasped. "No. Don't."

Castle could see his father moving, and he didn't care what the man said, he snagged his weapon from the holster and he brought it up, tried to maneuver Kate behind him.

"I will blow the hallway, Richard, so help me God. I will do it. She won't survive it; she'll be crushed and she'll fucking bleed to death, but you won't. You won't. You'll survive. Don't think I won't take my damn chances."

Castle jerked to a halt, side by side with Kate now. The living room lamp came on, throwing murky light across the floor. Black was in the dark dress pants he always wore, but his shirt was one of the army-issue dress and unkempt. In his right hand was the old Walther PPK Castle had always seen him with, and he was holding a device in his left, thumb caressing the button.

Nine charges. Castle had missed two, directional charges - all of them - designed to implode the hallway and leave the living room clear. Castle _would_ survive; he knew it. He'd survived something similar back in Turkey when he'd been on assignment before 9/11.

But Kate would not.

He still had his gun on Black though; he still had that. If he could...

"You shoot me," Black said quickly, "and the deadman's switch goes off a tenth of a second later. She won't be able to jump clear."

Would she? No, nine charges in the hall and even though he knew she'd do it - she'd jump clear of him to save their son - he didn't think she'd make it in time.

"I should do it," Black said softly. "What prevents me from shooting her?"

"No," Castle rasped. "No-"

"I could shoot her and what could you do about it? You can't shoot me and hope she lives."

"You shoot her and I will fucking end you," Castle roared, leaning forward.

His father raised the Walther. "Maybe it's time, Richard. She's thrown everything so far off course and now they want me to to provide them with you. My own son. They want the last of it, but I can't do that; I couldn't live with myself, not my son. It's time. It's time to-"

"No," Kate pleaded, stepping in close at his side. He shifted to shield her and he saw his father's finger twitch.

He couldn't shoot; he couldn't. The deadman's switch. He couldn't do it. They were at his father's mercy.

"Don't shoot her. Black - you're my father, and I'm asking you-" His throat closed up. "I am asking you, please. Please, do not shoot my wife. I can't - I need her. She's more essential to my survival than the regimen. You've seen that with your own eyes. Please. Please, don't."

"What does it matter now? Kill me, if you must. I understand. It's her or me; I get it now. You can't be both man and spy. I thought we had weeded out your baser nature; I assumed the strictures of the program had done their job with you as they had with me. I made one mistake in my life - one mistake - but I came back and I fixed it, Richard. I made you what you are. We've had thirty years of good - good work." His father was nodding now, shaking his head; he looked _moved_. "I'm proud of the work we did. This is a good end."

"No," Castle choked. His finger tightened on the trigger but the red lights blinked in warning. "No. D-dad. Please."

Beside him, Kate reached out and gripped the belt loop of his pants, hooked her fingers into his waistband, stroked along his hip.

And then he realized that was a message - but only a second before she opened her mouth.

"You can't kill me; you won't kill me. I'm pregnant with your grandson."

* * *

In the stunned shock that followed those words, Black's aim faltered.

It was all they needed.

Beckett darted behind Castle even as he moved to wrestle her behind his back, safe, shielded. Her heart was thundering so hard in her veins that her body shook, and she pressed her forehead between his shoulder blades and sucked in every breath, not daring to look.

Castle was rigid under her palms, and she heard Black curse.

She had bet everything on the idea that his father wouldn't hurt his own, but, God, she could be wrong. She be so wrong.

And then his father spoke. "Get - get out of the hall," Black rasped. "Shit, Richard. Get her the fuck out of the hallway before my finger _slips_."

Beckett shoved on Castle's back and he was already dragging her along with him until they hit right at the threshold of the living room. She fell against him and felt his chest expand, his grip on her bicep tighten.

"What?" she whispered, her cheek pressed to his back.

"I step forward and it's just you in the hall," he said. "But if you go ahead of me, it's a clear shot."

Kate groaned and shifted to his other side, away from Black but parallel to her husband. "Like this. Same time. Ready?"

"For God's sake, just get out of the hallway," Black croaked. He then lowered the gun, though he didn't put it down, knocking it into his thigh as his eyes swept over them.

Castle gripped her arm and they stepped over the invisible line at the same moment; he still had his gun in his hand and he had definitely not lowered his aim. He kept the gun trained on his father and she could feel the frantic flutter of his pulse.

Her heart was pounding too, and she thought she couldn't possibly stand on her own. Black still had the PPK as he moved towards them and Castle shifted in front of her again.

She wrapped her fingers around his elbow, haunting his side, and Black stopped, all three of them barely in the living room.

Black cleared his throat and tensed his grip on the gun. "I need to disarm the charges. You have to lower your weapon, son."

"I don't trust you."

Kate wasn't sure she did either. But Black furrowed his brow and looked straight at her. "Kate," he appealed. "I need to disarm the charges."

She didn't budge. "He's not lowering the gun." They had more to lose, infinitely more to lose; there was no way in hell Castle would stand down right this moment.

"How many are in the follow-up team?" Black rasped, his eyes cutting back to Castle. "How many are going to die when they come through?"

"No one," Castle growled. "There is no team. We're trying to hide out. Much as you."

Black took a breath and rocked back on his heels. He closed his mouth and something went over his face, some kind of intention or understanding that raised her hackles, her grip on Castle tighten.

And then Black squatted down and lowered the Walther PPK to the floor; he stood again and nudged it over with his shoe. It skittered to a stop at her feet and Kate bent down and picked it up. The butt of the pistol was warm.

Castle nodded her towards the middle of the room and lowered his aim, but he didn't take his eyes off his father. Black hesitated, the deadman's switch still in his hand.

"It's true?"

Castle grunted, his arm coming back again to corral Kate - as if she would move from this spot.

Black was still frozen just before the hall, his thumb pressed to the button. "Kate. It's true?"

"Of course," she whispered, chewing on her lower lip. Her guts were clenched as if against an invasion. "Castle. The sonogram. Show him. Prove it."

"It's in my bag," Castle muttered, inclining his head towards the hallway.

Black turned and glanced into the hall, not even keeping his eyes on his son, completely vulnerable in that moment. She felt Castle tense, and then the moment had passed and Castle hadn't shot him.

"I'll disarm the charges. And then you tell me everything," Black husked. He turned frightening eyes back to them, so dark and fathomless, and a chill scraped down Kate's spine. "You're going to need me. He's going to need me."

* * *

Black didn't speak again. He disarmed the charges and the guns went down, but Black didn't even look at them. He grabbed their bag and handed it over to Castle.

Kate took it from him, which was good because Castle didn't think he could do, expose his son like that. The sonogram, the ultrasound on the flash drive was too precious and intimate a moment, and he couldn't believe Kate was doing this.

"Castle," she said quietly.

He glanced once to her but he jerked his eyes back to his father when the man moved. Only to the dining room table where he stood in front of the laptop - closer to Beckett than Castle liked.

"Castle, the flash drive. It's in your pocket."

Castle waited a beat longer but he gave it up; there was nothing to do but stay the course. He stepped up right between them, shielding his wife, keeping the gun at his side just in case. He felt Kate's tension release with him right there, but he couldn't.

He didn't see how this could go well for them. His father had to be... furious.

But he pulled the flash drive out of his pocket and slid out the contact point, stuck it into the port on the laptop. Kate was the one who opened the file and started the video.

Castle felt sick as it played, and after only a few seconds, he couldn't do it. He turned his head and kept his eyes on Kate, hoping to avoid associating that wonderful moment with this desperate fear that was clawing inside him.

Kate reached out and gripped his hand in hers, and she seemed to be doing the same, keeping her eyes on his and not the monitor. There was no audio, but he could see it in his mind's eye - Beckett's name typed on the top right, the gestational age on the top left, and then - out of that moving and alive miasma - the kicking frog feet.

His little grey wolf.

God, he was going to murder his father if the man so much as breathed wrong in Kate's direction.

He felt Black move beside him and Castle jerked to attention, his hand bringing up the gun, but Black was only pausing the video. Castle couldn't help catching the view on the screen - his son, caught and frozen there.

And now the three of them were standing awkwardly around the dining room table, clustered here for the sake of that one little life.

He tried to take a breath, to just - stop the ride for a second and figure this out, just _think_.

"A boy," Black said. And then he reached out his hand to Kate's stomach, fingers loose, eyes hungry, and everything broke.

Castle snagged the man's wrist before he could touch her, swung his other fist up towards his father's jaw - still gripping the gun.

He felt the crunch of the weapon meeting his father's face and Black went down with a great rushing groan, hitting the floor like a sack of meat.

Castle dropped the weapon, reeling back and clipping his hip against the table, his whole body suddenly drained of energy. But Kate was there, her arms around him, her hand on his neck and her cheek to his. "You're okay; it's okay. I'm okay, Castle, love. It's okay."

From the floor, his father didn't move.

"Shit," Castle croaked. "Gotta - gotta treat him."

"Yeah," she whispered against his ear. "We do. We might need him, sweetheart."

He hated that most of all.

* * *

She had to admit; it was easier this way.

Castle wrestled his unconscious father onto the couch and duct taped his hands and elbows, his knees and feet, thoroughly trussed. With the charges still up against the back patio door and who knew where else, Kate stayed still in the middle of the living room, didn't even go into the kitchen for a bag of frozen broccoli.

She wouldn't find any anyway; she was fairly certain of that. She did note that Black had a few laptops, a duffle bag, and a black case of equipment; she was careful about her explorations, touching things with her sleeve or not at all. Black was carrying serum injections in a silver case tucked into the bottom of his bag, and it got her attention.

He'd said something about the project. She was having trouble teasing it out of her memory, the elusive thread of connection. She'd had a moment in that hallway where she'd been blindsided by a random, tossed-out statement, like it was a foregone conclusion - but one she'd never heard before.

She'd had the impression that Black himself was or had been on the regimen. Was that it? That he'd been the project once and had made a mistake - his son.

"Castle," she murmured. He was rooting around in the black equipment case, but his head came up when she called his name. "Ice for his jaw, something."

"Yeah. I'm making sure he doesn't have any other surprises. He's removed the blasting caps from the C4 along the hall, and I'm gonna search the rest of the place, disarm whatever I find."

She hated this, standing helplessly in the living room, unable to evaluate their situation, unable to assess their resources and come up with a solution simply because she was pregnant. Not that she minded relying on Castle - he was more than competent - but they worked so well together, as a team, partners.

Pregnancy was sidelining her and she didn't like it.

Castle moved from the equipment and back towards the bedroom, but she reached out and snagged his sleeve. "Castle. Ice. Something. I can do that at least."

"Ice." His face had that hard concentration to it that meant he'd slipped away from her for the mission; he was closed off, disconnected. He glanced once to his father and then he came back, his eyes like the sky when the clouds burned away. "Ice, yeah. I understand. Stay here?"

That it was a question - oh, she could kiss him. She nearly did, but instead she only nodded and let go of him so he could head for the kitchen and something frozen. She studied his father, unconscious on the couch, and couldn't find it in her to feel sorry for him. Not right now, not this moment.

Castle had safely tucked the flash drive back into his pocket, and she'd seen the reverence on his face, the care. She'd felt the same, trying not to watch it as Black feasted his eyes on it.

She shivered and rubbed her arms, and in that instant, Castle came up behind her with the gel packets they'd apparently left here after their recovery from Russia. She took the ice packs from him, and he rubbed his thumb and finger together, shaking his head.

"Don't spend too much time over him."

"No," she answered.

"I'm going to dismantle his escape plan," he muttered. But before he went, he leaned in from behind and wrapped his arm around her waist, his kiss glancing her temple. "Thank you. I - didn't know how we were going to get out of that."

She turned and drew him into an embrace, stupidly grateful that he had her back, that it was him she loved. Her spy.

His fingers caught her chin, his second kiss more purposeful. "Let me go. I need to clear the room."

"You first," she murmured, but he didn't. As if he wasn't able.

So she released her grip on his shirt and stepped away, the ice numbing her fingers where she still carried it. Castle leaned after her a moment and then he blinked and his eyes were stone and he was moving past her for the bedroom again.

* * *

She couldn't bring herself to sit on the couch beside him like he was - at all - anyone's grandfather. He would be, technically, but those two facts didn't bear any correlation in her mind. She kept _saying_ Black was James's grandfather but the meaning just didn't associate.

She left one of the gel packs laid over his jaw and inspected the lines in his face. Castle had pummeled him once, beaten him senseless in an alley when he'd tried to kill her, and his face was still partially ruined. She wondered if he saw his crooked eye and his twisted corner of his lips and thought of all the ways his son's wife had done this to him.

Fucked things up.

Kate shifted away, disconcerted by the thrill that shivered in her veins.

She'd ruined his plan, his grand and glorious plan for his world army, his perfect soldiers, his machinated spies. She had unmade his reich.

It felt powerful. It hadn't been through fear or manipulation; she hadn't carefully controlled propaganda or eliminated the competition. She had only loved. She had submitted herself, offered herself up to it - a fight all the way, of course. Nothing with her was easy, but here they were.

And love could do it again. Love could strike Black unconscious and clear the room, and love could see them safely on the other side.

He'd never love her, no, of course not. But he'd love his grandson, in whatever twisted and pathetic way he had available. And that was enough. That was all she needed.

_Just claim your grandson._

"We're clear," Castle called out, jogging back down the hallway towards her. "He's still out?"

"Yeah. You really let him have it."

"No, actually," Castle said grimly. "I didn't."

It wasn't funny. It wasn't, but she laughed and it was breathless and it fell out of her before she could stop it. Kate raised her hand to her mouth and shot Castle a horrified glance, but the corners of his lips turned up.

He held out his hand to her and she took it, their fingers lacing. She tilted her head to study her husband, and though the smile was poorly-constructed, she'd take it.

"We're pretty awesome together, you and I," she murmured, drawing him into her at the foot of the couch. Castle cupped the back of her head but he didn't kiss her, simply held her against him, arms getting tighter, tighter, hard and fierce until he choked her name.

"Kate, we almost-"

"No. No," she insisted. "We didn't. We're not. We're here."

He took in a shuddering breath and then it was gone again, all that raw emotion that her husband still sometimes didn't know how to handle. He'd never been given the encouragement to explore those complex, complicated things and now he sometimes faltered in them, like a fish out of water.

She tightened her fingers in his and brought their joined hands against her stomach in silent reminder.

"We're here," he said finally, nodding. He was back, strong. He was certain. "Now let's make our plan and then wake him up."


	8. Chapter 8

**Close Encounters 18**

* * *

It took them ten minutes to hash out how this would go, what they would say, the game they would play with his father. Castle's heart was pounding because it made him sick, it made his mouth sour - the words she wanted them to say: _James is part of this_.

Saying the words wouldn't make them true, but he couldn't help the way his soul slid dizzy in his chest.

Kate took his hand and pressed his knuckles to her stomach, standing close. There was no movement yet, of course, no heartbeat or kick or any of those things from the ultrasound. It was still too early. But it was good to have that connection. With Castle's own body blocking the view of his wife from the couch just in case Black woke, Castle slowly inched up the hem of her shirt until he could brush her bare skin.

She leaned into him, her eyes heavy with want, and so he tucked the tips of his fingers into the waistband of her jeans, a reminder and a promise. They were so close now that her nose brushed his cheek.

"For him," she murmured. "We can do this for him."

"For you," he insisted. "I'm doing this for you, Kate. Because I need you free of him. We need free of him."

"Yes," she said softly. "I know. He's dangerous. But at the same time, we have an advantage: I know how he thinks about you, sweetheart. What we're doing here is a show, a production. We're actors, remember? We're selling the drama. And this will work like it worked in Tunisia."

It had barely worked, he thought, but he didn't say it. He rubbed his fingers around her belly button and then skimmed the shirt back to her hips, turned away to finally start the show.

When he stood in front of the couch, Castle glanced over his shoulder at her. Kate nodded from her spot across the room, away from charges, away from guns, away from the reach of his father. Castle nodded back and leaned in over Black, sharply slapped his face.

Black grunted and his eyelids peeled back, slowly, like two lizard eyes becoming aware. Castle hovered over him until his father's alertness became dangerous, and then he backed up, put the coffee table between them.

Bound with duct tape at his ankles, knees, elbows, and hands, Black had some movement but no ability to inflict much damage. Unless with a mermaid kick. But Castle was wary; no way in hell his father was getting past him. He'd been training for the last thirty years of his life for the ultimate moment, the final showdown, and while he'd been expecting a Korean assassin for that meeting - not his father - Castle was nonetheless prepared.

And, ironically, when he'd been six years old and just starting out his hand-to-hand combat training, his mind's eye had created this exact opponent in the ring, painted his father's face over every target the knife-blade had struck.

His six year old self had known this day would come.

"Richard," his father said, though he sounded like his tongue was working around marbles.

"And Kate," Castle answered the man. "It will be - from now on - both of us you address. Together. Equals."

"Ah."

_Ah? _No wonder Kate always yelled at him for using that cop-out of a sound instead of answering her. It was overwhelmingly non-supportive. How many fights had he started by mentally checking out on her with _ah_ as a kind of dismissal?

Beckett made a noise and Castle glanced back at her, saw the familiarity on her face. She gave him a raised eyebrow and nodded her head towards his father.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "I hear it."

"Richard. _Kate_." Black's dry approach drew Castle's eyes back to his father where he saw the man slowly pulling his knees up to sit instead of slump. Castle didn't help, didn't offer help, and he felt Kate's fingers close around his bicep, standing at his side now.

They could do this. It was a show. They told the man what he wanted to hear to ensure the safety of their son, to keep Kate alive.

"So what happens now?" Black asked. He was trussed in duct tape and sitting awkwardly against the arm of the couch, but he spoke as if he were in control of the whole world. "Where does this leave us?"

"We're going to be very clear," Beckett said softly. "No more games, John. Do you understand?"

His father's eyes flashed to Kate so quickly, so cuttingly, that it made Castle step involuntarily into the coffee table in some kind of dominant posturing. Like he had to protect his woman. But the look on his father's face - that natural and immediate reaction of pure disdain - made Castle want to beat it off of him.

"We're clear," Black answered finally. "No more games. You're pregnant, the boy is - will need the knowledge I possess. Isn't that right? Why I'm still here. You need me."

"Alive, you mean?" Castle said nonchalantly. "Not really, Black. You, yourself, I care nothing about. Your continued existence comes only as a_ favor_ to Kate, because I love her more than I hate you, because I won't do that to her, condemn our son before we know for sure."

"I thought the same thing. Once," Black murmured. A strange look had fallen over his face. "I thought that about you - wait and see. But it didn't work, Richard. You were a sickly thing. The doctor was telling your mother she'd be reported for child neglect if he had to mark down in your chart _failure to thrive._"

Castle went very still.

"So I took you. I brought you to the program and now look at you. Failure to thrive? I made you gr-"

"No," Kate answered. "I said no more games, John. No more head games, no more of this psychological warfare. If you keep messing with his head, then I will let him kill you - because Castle is the most important thing to me."

_Not my son_.

She didn't say it, but the silence did. Castle shifted his eyes to her, throat closing off and his chest tight. He gripped her hand and she nodded at him and he knew it, deep where all that darkness still slumbered, knew that she meant it. Like he meant it.

This life didn't work without her.

"It's not a game to me," Black said into their silence. "That child - this is not a game. This is very real, this is serious. He is going to need things your doctors have no idea even exist. He's - he's part of this now. He _is _the program."

"No," Castle said. "He's not the program. He's his own. James. And we're keeping you alive for his sake, so you'd better respect that. Respect Kate."

Black worked his jaw, no doubt testing the bruised places. "Those are your terms? For the sake of James. A truce because of the boy."

"A truce," Kate confirmed.

Castle didn't trust it; he would never trust it. But he could see it through if it meant keeping them alive for another nine months. After that, he'd figure out another deal, and another, until infinity.

Black straightened up. "You need-"

"You don't get to dictate the truce," Castle said softly. He knew his face looked dangerous, that his eyes were flat. He knew because he had practiced this dead, emotionless look for every mission, wanting only to prove something to the man before him. Now he needed to prove nothing but how serious he was. "This is the end of things, Black. You either can agree or you can die - because either you are helping ensure the future of my family or you are a threat to my family. Do you understand me?"

Black said nothing, eyes calculating, and then he turned to look at Beckett.

"I have your word, Kate Beckett. I'm in this now. You know I am. What he needs - James. The boy. When he needs me, and he will - you will - so I'm already in this."

Castle glanced at her, brow furrowed, but she was looking at him, not at his father. His heart eased. It was a show, it was just a show. They knew the truth.

She slid her fingers down the inside of his arm and took his hand, and then her eyes trailed to Black. "Castle is on a recovery team - a joint task force - whose sole aim is to capture you dead or alive. That's your insurance, John. We can let you know in advance. That's what we can give you. Not because we need you. We don't need you. But there are things you know about the regimen that you can give us in return."

Castle squeezed her hand harder when he felt the damp sweat at her palm. She was cold-faced and flint-eyed, but he she was desperate inside. He knew she was and he was proud of her in this moment for standing so tall.

"I don't think a man should kill his father," Kate told Black. "But." She shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Whatever we don't know about the regimen, I'm sure will come in time. We have most of your files from Dr Saber, a huge section from Congo 3, from the site in Ireland-"

Ireland? She was totally bluffing. She was bluffing, but holy shit, his father was buying it. His father _did _have information out there, stashed around the world, and Beckett had figured it out, figured he must, and now look at her.

She was awesome.

"-we have what we need, John. We don't need you. But James is his own - he's not the program, and even though we'd figure it out eventually, a life of trial and error isn't what I want for him. It's definitely not what Castle wants. We want him to remain his own. Do you understand me?"

"His own."

"This isn't going to be like what you did to your son," Castle growled. Too sharply, too much, and Kate squeezed him hard. He shut his mouth and let her take over again.

"No, this won't be the program, John. This will be our son - his own man - with all the options available to him. That's what we want you for, do you see? That's what we'd like from you - options."

"Options," Black echoed. "About the regimen. How does that keep me alive?" His face half-twisted as if for a sneer, but the other half wouldn't let him complete it. It made him look hesitant.

Kate stepped closer, her voice strong and even. "I told you - because a man shouldn't kill his own father, not when he has a son to think of. Plus, I think you're already on our side. You've never told them about Rick, that he was your perfect creation, so I know you understand me. I know you think like I do. You didn't tell them, did you?"

Black shook his head as if spellbound by her, answering her every soft question.

"I know you didn't. Whoever _they _are - and we want to know that too - you didn't tell them about Rick. And now James is yours, too, if only you can possibly let go of the rest, the program. Let it go, just let go of it. Hasn't it done enough? The ruin and the waste of it, John, that's in the past now. For James's sake."

His father was actually listening to her. Sitting there, staring at Kate with the crooked side of his mouth open as if now there was a war inside him as well, a civil war, as if the ruined, damaged, _touched_ half of him was corrupting the controlled, perfect, untouchable half of him.

Kate had done it.

Castle had spent thirty years trapped by this man, controlled by him, dictated to and oppressed and jerked around, all because he had wanted, somewhere inside him, to find his father. Wanted his _dad_.

And now Kate had found him.

His wife sat down on the coffee table in front of the couch, a hand pressed to her belly and shaping the material of her shirt over the rise. Black's gaze dropped right to it, mesmerized, and a slick fear crawled through Castle's guts.

"This is what you've worked for," Kate said quietly. "Don't let the rest of it get in the way of what can still be done - the _good_ work. Remember? You've done good work, and now it's time for us to take it up."

"You," Black said hollowly. His eyes shifted up to Kate first and then finally to Castle. He looked defeated in a way that Castle had never seen before and it had his knees unlocking and his legs taking him over to the coffee table to sit beside Kate.

In front of his father as if waiting for a benediction.

"Us," Castle said. And then the reminder, bringing them full circle. "Rick and Kate. Together."

"And James?"

"He makes his own choices," Castle answered. "That's how it is."

His father stared at Kate and then blinked, slowly, as if coming out of a dream.

"Yes, okay. I understand."

* * *

Kate was so tense she felt like she was going to grind her bones to nothing.

They'd broken camp at the couch, Castle had unpeeled the duct tape from his father's elbows and wrists and allowed the man some freedom as a show of 'good faith'. He'd hauled Black to the dining room table and now they were hashing out the details of their unsteady truce.

Mostly it was Black sharing information about the group coming after him, the group he called the Collective. And then he would ask a soft question about how far along, or how _fast_ was the baby growing, or in the future, could they...?

Her stomach churned and she didn't know if it was just nerves alone or some kind of terrible premonition. "Tell me about the Collective, first," she said firmly. No more private details, no more family moments.

"They funded me. When MK-ULTRA was disbanded by our own government, I couldn't - I needed to continue my work."

"The program," Castle echoed.

"I had been... there were human test subjects, of course. That was the whole point of it." Black rubbed two fingers at his temple and gave Castle a strange look. "It feels good to tell you this. I never thought... this is right. That you should know your inheritance."

"MK-ULTRA was disbanded in 1973," Kate interrupted. Black gave her a startled look and she smiled grimly. "Since that place in the Congo was raided, I've been doing my homework. We know quite a lot, John."

"Well, what you don't know is that 1973 was the official cease and desist, but ULTRA has survived."

"In projects like yours."

"Like mine. And there are others."

_Are_. Not there had been, there were now. Castle seemed to catch on to that too. "All these experiments on living human beings, and you sit there-"

"Richard, think about it. Your wife has evidently figured it out."

"What?" Castle snarled, but he glanced back at her.

Kate sighed. "He was one of them. He _was_ the program. Just like you."

"What?"

Black gave them back a look that was much less triumphant than Kate had been expecting. "Yes. Well. My work. My responsibility."

"And so you needed it. Your funding got cut but you _needed _it."

"I did once," Black said, nodding. He smoothed his fingers down the ruined side of his face. "Obviously not like you need it. Though when you came along..."

"That's why you took him from his mother," Kate jumped in. She couldn't help it. She'd figured this out while she'd been under house arrest but she hadn't known how to tell Castle. "You took him one year after the program lost its stamp of approval from the government because you had new backers - and a sick boy."

"They were the same backers, same men, back then. They merely formed an international cabal. Allies, of course, all looking to create a functioning Erector set for the perfect soldier."

"An Erector set?" Kate prodded. "You mean - a way to _build_ them. Build soldiers. Pick and choose which enhancements."

"Exactly. It's not that far off, though my work got side-tracked. They are not happy about it."

"So they're hunting you down," Castle rasped. She wondered how he was handling this, but she wouldn't make him lose face by taking his hand, proving he needed the extra show of strength. He cleared his throat. "They're hunting you down because you got side-tracked?"

"The Collective is powerful and they have endless funds - and I've stopped giving them what they want."

"And what do they want?" Castle said harshly.

"You."

Kate cut her eyes to her husband, but she could see he didn't believe it. "Tell us why," she asked. "Tell us why you think they're-"

"Oh, they don't know it's _him_. I'm not stupid. I've kept the records clean, very clean. It was always code. But when my son went rogue and started screwing up my test results with _you_, my dear, there was little I could do. I fabricated test results for a long time, thinking I'd get Richard back on track, but you just wouldn't let go of him."

Black's eyes were flint, but Kate didn't let it stop her. She wanted answers and she wasn't going to let his hatred make her cower. Not any longer. "And why can't you continue to do that? Fake the results?"

"Because my results are based off of his successes - which have become failures now that he's off the program. They don't _know_ there is a human being walking around in the world who exists perfectly within the flux of the regimen. They know the serum causes severe malfunctions in humans - they were given the Afghanistan trials, of course. But they know I didn't stop there."

"So they're looking for what?" Castle cut in. "They're looking for another set of guinea pig soldiers?"

"They don't know what they're looking for. I kept it apart from them. I gave them scenarios and bar graphs. I told them human trials had suffered too massive a setback for further consideration at this time - not until it's stable."

"But obviously they're suspicious," Kate interrupted. "If they're coming after you now."

"Someone put me into a holding cell," Black said dryly, glancing to Castle. "They stopped receiving updates."

Oh.

This was _their fault._

Kate's stomach clenched again, tightening with knots. She felt darkness looming over them, a sense of defeat already in progress.

Maybe it was just mourning for their old life, easier life. They couldn't stay here, ever again. Their home in Italy, this beautiful Roman apartment where they'd rebuilt themselves after Russia - this place was lost to them.

"The Collective is coming for you," Kate said then. "So... we help you stay away from them. You give me details about the regimen, and we help you on two fronts: the Collective and the government."

Black didn't look any happier than Kate felt.

"How do we get in touch with you?" Castle asked then. "I know you have places - rabbit holes. I don't need to know where. But if I have to warn you we're coming, we need a method that won't fail."

His father pressed his hands flat to the table. "I don't like the idea of you being able to... reach me like that."

"It does us no good if we can't warn you. Does _you_ no good. And if we have a question about the medical side of things, if the baby... there has to be a way."

Both men stared at each other, unwilling to relent.

Kate broke the stalemate. "One way voice link - or a modification of that. We all have access to the internet. John? Wherever you're headed tonight, you have a way to get online, don't you?"

Black gave her reluctant nod of respect. "All right. Yes. Email. I see. But-"

"No, John. Not just email. There are open-source software programs that will allow us to send time-compressed, encrypted messages. Private-key encryption on a flash drive. We can create that encryption right here, right now. The software will transmit encrypted data on an open platform. No need for email - it's right there out in the open. It will have our digital signature, and only ours, and you'll know. You won't have to even leave a trail, because you could get on at any open wireless network."

His father sat back in his chair, staring at her.

Castle cleared his throat. "She's been trained by the best. By _me_. I know what you think of her, but she's better at this than you are - especially in the emerging methods."

Black rubbed his jaw where the bruise was starting to color. "You may have started out a cop, but I'll give you that."

She didn't trust him, but she _wanted_ to. It was a stupid and risky wish, but she wanted his father to _like_ her, wanted to prove herself to him just as she had from the beginning. She was competitive and aggressive and she knew how to impress them all, and it frustrated her that Black had resisted her for so long. Black had been outside of her sway.

It was dangerous; she needed to tamp down on her pride.

"We need a one-time pad," Black said then. "Incorporate that into your private-key encryption, and I'll do it."

Castle snorted. "You mean the encryption changes based on... what?"

"Make it simple," Kate cautioned. "This is for messages, but we can use it to just raise a flag on the open platform, Black. A star means we're all clear. Another familiar icon would mean something else."

"One-time pad based on the month," Black insisted. "Same for thirty days. Just in case."

"Fine," Castle cut in, a hand out on the table to still her. Kate closed her mouth and waited. "The encryption key will change based on the numerical month. And you'll post your location on our open platform using that key."

Black relented as well, but Kate could sense something dark in him, something lurking. A nasty plan. "All right. I'll post my location to you. I - that's a concession from me, you understand. A big one."

"And you want one from us," Kate said.

"I do."

"A big one."

"Take the regimen," Black said bluntly. He was staring straight at Kate. "Take the regimen while you're pregnant."

"No," Kate answered. Beside her, she felt Castle let out a breath of relief and she knew he'd have fought her to the death if she'd even hinted at agreement.

Black rubbed a hand down his face. "You have to - listen to me for a second. I know you don't trust me. But Richard was sick as a child. All the time. Because I wasn't there to give the woman what was necessary for him to be strong. But for this one - for James - if you take it now-"

"That will never happen," Castle growled. She saw how his anger came over him, how he had to grip the edge of the table to keep from launching himself at his father. "She will never take the serum. You know what it does to people."

"No serum, fine, okay. The serum is off the table," Black said quickly. Too easily capitulating. "But the rest of it. The supplements - I can have my chemist tailor them for her weight and nutritional-"

"No regimen," Castle snapped, cutting Kate off. She'd been about to say _I'm already taking pills_, but she saw now that it was better Black not know that. Just in case.

"She's going to have to take something else, Richard. For her own health, she's going to need more than that. I was - my DNA is nothing like yours. I can't even conceive of the differences between your conception and this one. There's-"

"How long have you been taking the regimen?" Kate blurted out.

The room fell still. Black's eyes burned on hers for one long moment and then he folded his hands in front of him. "I no longer take it." Kate could tell the truth had cost him.

"How?" Castle harshed. "When? How is it possible to just stop?"

"My experience was in the early stages. I wasn't going to test on soldiers who had no idea. They were getting vaccinated for malaria, chemical warfare - untried experiments - and I was more humane than that. I injected myself first."

"What happened?" Kate whispered. "What did it do to you?"

Black looked distinctly uneasy. She figured he'd never intended for this to come to light, but now they had a truce. Now Black hoped to convince her for James's sake. They could use that.

"I was stark raving mad for five days and they hospitalized me. I came out of it and tried it again with some alterations."

"Holy shit," Castle breathed. "Are you insane? That's - no, of course, you are actually insane. The regimen did it to you. No _wonder_ - it's actually made you crazy."

"Don't think I haven't wondered," Black muttered under his breath. Then his face cleared and he shook his head. "Back then it was nothing like what it is now. It was enhancements and a few ways to speed up energy production in my mitochondria. After a few years, it was nothing at all like what you saw in Afghanistan. I had black outs from time to time, but it was being handled. I believe you met Dr Saber."

"Dr. Saber did that?" Kate asked, leaning forward. "And then what? You experimented on yourself for years and-"

"And then I - Richard - your mother was never a part of the plan. _You_ were not the plan. But during my - there were times I could not quite control myself. My discipline crumbled and the program left me... shall we say, without inhibitions? And I met her during one of those spans and then, well. You, Richard."

Holy. Shit. His father'd had a blackout and gotten Martha pregnant. No _wonder_ she said he'd seemed such a charming man.

Beckett reached under the table and gripped Castle's forearm, squeezing to bring him back to the here and now. He gave her a slow and stunned look, and she held on until his eyes cleared.

"And then I happened," Castle said roughly, closing his eyes. He took a breath and opened them again. "Right. Of course. You had a black-out and made a kid."

"Thank God for that," Black said quietly. "I needed you. I didn't know it, but I did. Whatever else, I have done my duty to you as a father. And more."

Kate clutched harder at Castle's arm to keep him in check, keep him from saying something and ruining what they were falsely and purposefully building here. The show. The play. Telling Black what he needed to hear to keep them all safe.

"Kate - Katherine, isn't it? A royal name, befitting a czar. Katherine, it's important that whatever process of DNA building is going on right now in James is being given the support it needs. Just as I later gave Richard. The regimen is vital."

"Right now, we're doing what needs to be done," Kate answered, ignoring that shit about her name. Black was building his own reality here as well, his own performance. She knew that. "I have no intention of hurting him - and the regimen, the serum, that's what got us into this mess. So you let Castle and I handle that."

Black sat back in the seat, crossed his arms over his chest. "You're already taking it," he said quietly. "Aren't you? Something, you're doing something. Richard, did you know she was taking the regimen? I can see it on her face. She's sly; you'll need to watch out for her."

"I know exactly what she's taking," Castle answered coldly. "We said no more games, Black."

Kate kept still, her eyes locked on Black's. This was how it would be, then. He'd attempt to undermine her and stab her in the back at every turn. She'd do well to remember that. Transparency with Castle - that was what it took to keep them above it. No more secrets, no more carefully worded statements - honest truth.

"No more games," Black answered. "Of course."

"I'm taking a modified version of the stabilizer," Kate answered him. Castle's arm rotated under her hand and his palm met hers, fingers lacing in solidarity. She let out a breath. "So we're covered there, thanks."

"For now, that's... ideal," Black answered. He looked surprised, and she thought it went a long way towards shoring up their position here too - they weren't as stupid as he'd thought. "I'm pleased. That will help quite a lot. For James, of course. Richard was so sick - until I got to him. I started him on treatments and that did it. Nearly overnight."

"So you'd be willing to answer my questions about the regimen?" Kate asked.

"Of course. Of course. For James."

Castle was rigid beside her but Kate actually felt _better_.

"For James," she agreed. "Exactly. And you'd talk with the doctors we have, give them what they needed? Details."

"Details?"

"Like how often Castle - Rick - had those shots. What was the dosing? Is there a difference between what we call 'at rest' and 'active' - for when he's out on a mission versus at home. Do we need bigger doses after a traumatic event?"

"You _have_ been doing the work," Black murmured.

"Of course. For Rick," she answered. "He needs it too. I'd do anything."

Castle grunted and drew her hand towards his lap, and the intensity was broken, like a mirror being shattered, and Kate turned her head to her husband and gave him an apologetic smile.

He let out a breath but he didn't seem to relax. She knew the details of the regimen made him furious, and he didn't want to have to know, but they did.

They had to know.


	9. Chapter 9

**Close Encounters 18**

* * *

Castle had confiscated his father's explosives and most of the equipment, but he left Black with one weapon - the Walther PPK. The duct tape was on the dining room table, clumped together pieces from where Black had peeled it from his pants.

"You should clean up," Kate told the man. "John, at least a new shirt."

Fuck, he really didn't like this. "Can we just go?" he muttered to her, gripping her wrist to draw her against his side. She had to be exhausted - he knew _he_ was - but she just kept trying to arrange everything, fix things, like a relationship could be established in the span of a handful of stand-off hours.

But he knew she was right; he knew that they had to make his father believe it was one big happy family. As twisted and messed up as it was.

Kate shot him a quelling look and turned again to Black. "If you go out there at this time of night, you're going to attract attention like that. You look rough, John. At least a clean shirt. Go in the bathroom, take your time."

He was going to vomit.

But his father cast a swift look at him and Castle schooled his features. "We have the time," he said finally. "No one knows you're here. We've still got to lie low for a while. But you just can't stay here."

Not in their home. Although, it wasn't their home any more. Not after this. He couldn't even begin to imagine a day when they'd come back here. Even the whole city of Rome wasn't big enough now.

"I'll change shirts," his father said finally. They'd been standing awkwardly in the living room, and Black backed up, knelt down beside his bag to unzip it. Castle kept his eyes on him even though he knew every item inside that duffle.

When Black stepped into the bathroom with a fresh shirt, he left the door wide open. Castle could hear him place the weapon on the sink and the water running.

Kate sagged against him and he barely had time to catch her before she was turning and practically burying herself in his chest. "Oh, God," she whispered tightly. Castle gripped the back of her neck with his free hand, held her close.

"You're okay," he murmured. "We're okay. You did the right thing. You're so good at this, Kate. You know exactly what to say."

"I never thought..." She trailed off and lifted her eyes to look at him. "I don't know if this will work, Rick, but it's all I know to do. At least for the next nine months, we have some measure of safety. All of us. I just want-"

The water shut off and Kate went rigid in his arms; she quickly stepped away from him and stood tall again, her face regaining that impassive strength that made his heart kick because he knew - he knew below it she was barely holding on.

She was so damn amazing.

He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and shield her, but he didn't reach out for her. He knew his touch was a straight shot right to her heart and she needed every defensive wall in place.

Black came out of the bathroom with the weapon holstered, clean shirt, looking better now for it. The ruined half of his face kept his mouth from that severe frown he'd always had, and Castle found the change disconcerting.

He didn't know the man - he had never known the man. Not really. Injected _himself_ with the regimen?

"This is where we part ways," Kate said then. She held out her hand to Black and both men froze. Kate stepped in closer. "You said the house on Via Venezia - that's where you'll be. We'll contact you if something happens."

Black nodded like he believed them, and maybe he did, maybe Kate had so thoroughly detailed this strange new world with such accurate half-truths that Black was wrapped up in it, snared. Maybe Castle's father really believed that they were in this together. "You're leaving now, though," Black said.

"We're leaving together," Kate soothed. "All of us."

"And you'll be...?"

"Gone," Castle interrupted, not giving him a location. "We're not staying here. We're under scrutiny for the senator's death in the States. You might know something about that."

Black's face was impassive again, but Castle thought he caught a trace of frustration shimmering there. So it wasn't all gone; they were all playing the game, probing each other for weaknesses.

Castle hoped he and Kate were playing the game smarter. Better.

"Senator Bracken knew about the experiments, didn't he?" Kate asked suddenly. "About the program. That's why you went after him so hard. Not for me, not for Rick - for you."

"For Richard," Black said crisply. "Not for me. It was those damn soldiers. They deserted the program and joined up with that pompous, greedy asshole. I didn't know it then, but they made such a mess. Assassinating people, money laundering, ridiculous power plays."

"When we came up with the name," Castle said, his voice hard. "When I brought his you name. Why didn't you say something then?"

"It was easier to let it play out. I didn't know about Bracken, what he was doing on the side, and of course I didn't know about her mother. That connection was new to me. So convenient that our two missions dovetailed like that. All I knew was that he kept me out of the Director's chair at a crucial time in the program and everything fell apart. And then recently, he found out that Richard was Charlie One and I knew he had to be dealt with. Thank you, Katherine, for doing the dealing."

Charlie One. Doing the _dealing_. Castle stepped forward - to do what, he had no idea - but Kate blocked him, her body in front of his so that the cold and clear reminder of what they were doing washed over him again.

Keep Kate alive. This was all to keep her alive, give James a chance to make it. But Castle's hands were shaking; he could feel the barrel of his gun knock into his knee and he growled to himself. It was unacceptable. He needed to be better than this, needed to fucking get it together. If Kate could do it, he could too.

"I never wanted Bracken dead," Kate said into the silence. Her voice cracked and Castle lifted his free hand to the slope of her spine, gripping her shirt to let her know he had her back. "I wanted justice. But Castle is more important to me. And James was - I couldn't lose Castle's son. I only protected-"

"You did a fine job," Black said, as if _soothing_ her. "It wasn't exactly what I'd planned-"

"You wanted her dead. You thought they'd take each other out," Castle growled. "You're a damn fool if you think you can get away with that. You sent Maine after her to do your dirty work, cleaning up your mess."

Black's jaw worked where it was bruised, a fire flashing in his eyes. "Lucky for us, I did not attend to that chore myself."

"And never again," Castle said, stepping in right against Kate. "Never again. If it hasn't been made clear - that is never an option. Not if you want to have _any_ part in James's life, let alone mine."

"Of course. Can't kill a boy's mother," Black said easily. It sounded _too_ easy.

"We need proof," Kate said then. She reached back and took Castle's hand, lacing their fingers together. She wasn't as strong as she looked; her palm was sweating. "Proof of good faith that killing me isn't an option. You sent Maine after me. Who else? Who else did you send? Who else is yours?"

Black's face altered. Just a second, just a glimpse, but it was there.

Castle hadn't thought to ask outright - blunt questions had never worked before. It wasn't the game. But Kate's question had shaken something loose. "Black," he said, worked at keeping his voice measured. "We told you about James. Now you tell us. We know you have a man inside."

"You'll kill him."

"No," Kate said. "That's not how this works. It's not life for life, it's not about killing anyone. It's about saving them. Isn't that the work you tried to do? You injected yourself before you ever had live subjects."

"Saving them."

"Who's your man?" Castle said quietly.

Black's face twisted but the words forced themselves out. "Ken Walker, an analyst. Served ten years with me. It's him. He's the last."

Kate let out a breath and Castle felt it, the shiver of betrayal running through him. Walker had been one of the guys coordinating the search effort when Kate had been abducted by Bracken. Had he fucked them over? Had he been reporting incorrect information to keep Castle twisting long enough for Bracken to do damage?

Or had Walker been the one to find the location, make those connections, only fast enough for Castle to be an eye witness to his wife's attempted murder?

"You need to leave now," Kate said into the crooked silence. "It's not - safe for you here."

They all knew what she meant by that.

"You're leaving now too. Right?" Black said. "And Walker will be..."

"We're leaving together. And Walker will be given a chance," Kate soothed. "Rick."

Walker's chance would be a fucking slim one.

But Castle said nothing, merely stepped into the now explosives-free hallway and picked up their bag, plus the equipment case, slung everything over one shoulder. He didn't holster his weapon though; he couldn't. "You first, Black."

His father glanced to the hall. "And then Katherine."

Castle grunted but Kate lifted her hand and gripped his forearm, stalling his objection. Black nodded and stepped into the hall, and then Kate followed him, Castle bringing up the rear.

His heart was racing, a horse pushed to the brink and sweating foam. He was exhausted but his adrenaline kept jolting him, hard and quick, his eyes burning with the effort of it.

_Increased energy production in the mitochondria._

Was that it? He regretted all the times he'd never paid attention to his father's lectures on the program, although he didn't see how that could possibly help him now, walking single-file down the hallway towards the door.

Black opened it and his form eclipsed the starlight, a myriad of tiny sparks against the dark. Beckett stepped down after him and Castle came up at the rear, closing the door behind them, the lock automatic.

Black turned on the lower step, and suddenly he was reaching back to Kate, fingers extended. Castle jerked forward but it wasn't time to stop him. Kate gasped as Black pressed his hand over her stomach, over the boy.

Everyone froze.

The darkness was brittle, a petrified tableau.

And then Black jerked his hand away and went down the steps, stumbling, his bag catching him up at the bottom. "I - I didn't mean - I'll leave. Via Venezia. Yes. And you'll..."

Castle made it to the bottom of the stairs, shoving right past Kate as he grabbed for Black's shoulder, spun him around. He locked eyes with his father. But instead of the disgust that usually stained his features after an encounter with Kate, Black's face was blank.

Even confused.

Castle's horror like a fist around his throat, and Black's confusion dispersed the rest of Castle's anger. His father stood up straighter as if trying to collect himself, pressed his lips into a thin line.

"Well, Richard. Son. Congratulations." His eyes shifted to Kate and then skittered away again, came back as if drawn. "Katherine." The rigid control of his voice broke, softened.

"James."

And then Black turned his back on them and walked painstakingly down the sidewalk and into the night.

* * *

When they were safely ensconced in a cab, the darkness folding in around them and the driver separated by thick plexiglass, when they were finally out of Rome's city limits and heading north towards Florence and a place Beckett knew from her days in college, when the whole thing began to melt back behind them, Kate bowed her head into her hands and prayed.

Formless, wordless, abject _pleading_.

To something greater than her, to the love that kept her and Castle together all this time, to the Universe that had pushed them together, to the little grey wolf that was hanging on still, growing and thriving.

She didn't even have words for it, the plea, but it was a cry from her very soul.

After a minute, Castle's hand came heavily to her back, palm weighting her down, and the grief spilled over and slipped free. She turned into him, silent in her tears, and he made a stricken noise that echoed down to her bones.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding on, but she couldn't get it back, couldn't bring it together, and she pressed her face into his neck and tried not to sob.

This was too much. It was too much; she couldn't contain it.

"I love you," he was whispering against the side of her face. "I love you. I love you."

She snaked her arms around his torso and hunkered into him, too tired to be mortified, too broken to be better. She drew her knees up onto the seat and Castle cursed and drew her into his lap.

She shuddered as the grief dislodged, an iceberg in her chest, collapsing her as it began to break up. Castle laid his hand over her ear and kept her pressed down against him, rubbing his cheek to hers.

"Nothing can take you away from me," he choked. "Nothing. Love, nothing can take you from me."

God, she didn't want to die. She _wanted_ this life with him. She'd never known how badly until right now.

* * *

The villa just outside Florence was a flat-walled, three-story structure with terra cotta tiled roofs and thin, delicate trees lining the drive. The cab pulled up at the front door and Castle paid the man with euros, half of what he had in his pockets. Beckett was already getting out, her face rubbed free of make-up, her eyes only a little red, her movements as spare and graceful as ever.

It was nearly five in the morning and the sky was the grey of almost-light, of thinking-about-it-light, and it reflected like pearls across her face and down her throat. He slung their bags over his shoulder and took her hand; she had only her cross-body bag with their pills and passports and money.

She took his hand, fingers tangling, hooked together, and they waved the driver off as they headed for the front door.

"College co-eds, mostly, when I was here," she answered his unspoken question. Her voice was thin but strong enough. "Rented rooms and suites, usually in groups. She might remember me. We lived here a month on free travel that semester."

He didn't care if the woman remembered Kate or not - he wanted only to get them inside and lock the doors and maybe not resurface for a week.

They mounted the wide, flagstone steps together and Kate opened the ornate wooden door; once inside, the air was crisp with lemon polish and artificial lighting, incongruent with the basil-and-earth feel of the inn's facade. The entry was tiled in cream and blue and yellow in an intricate arrangement of geometry, and the short hall led to a wide front room and a low desk.

"It's not her," Kate sighed.

Behind the desk was a woman, wizened and shawled like she was out of some Disney cartoon. She had her hand propping up her chin, her kinky white hair in a messy bun around her head. She straightened at the close of the door and peered their direction.

"She's blind," Castle said, moving them forward. A great relief washed through him, as if the woman's lack of vision somehow protected them all the more, and he stepped up to the counter with confidence, used a halting Italian. "We'd like a room for the week, if you have the space."

"We have three floors - did you not see? We most assuredly have the space," the old woman said. "Names?"

He gave the woman their traveling names, cover IDs made for their first European tour, back when he'd married her in Rome. The woman ran her fingers over their passports, checking for something unknown to him, but it all seemed to be right. She entered their names into a computer, feeling by touch, handed them a key from a designated slot.

"Breakfast at six, though you both sound tired - it's okay if you miss it. It stays out until eleven, refreshed hourly." Her Italian was rapid and natural, not leaving room for the traveler's usual hesitance, and Castle pretended he'd gotten only _breakfast_.

"We'll avoid it," he said, choosing his words awkwardly. "Thank you."

The woman chuckled at his poor language skills, but Castle was already heading down the hall to the left where the room numbers were labeled by a blue plastic plaque. Kate had the key, the jangle of its metal against the thick leather key-ring was comforting as it echoed on the stone hall. He waited on her to unlock the door, and she pushed inside first, her breath leaving her in a rush.

"Good choice," he murmured. The place was gorgeous in its simplicity. A wide bed with a pale blue cover and a quilt folded at the foot dominated the far right wall, and from there the room opened up onto a sitting area and television, a small desk with a chair, and a loveseat. A marble counter with a sink hid a mini fridge behind a wood-panel door, and a microwave rested on a low shelf above it.

"I want to go to bed," Kate said, dropping the keys on the round, lacquered table just beside the bathroom door. Ensuite, probably converted space - once a closet or small, attached nursery - and the conveniences were modern, all of it recently redone.

"I need a shower," he muttered. She made a noise and he glanced over at her, heart tripping funny at the sound. She looked forlorn and he hastily changed his plans. "No. Okay. Bed."

She furrowed her brow and opened her mouth as if to contradict herself, to say no, she wasn't that bad off, but he didn't care. He needed her too.

Castle grabbed the strap of her bag and tugged her into him; she didn't capitulate so much as fall, but he caught her. He pushed the bag off her shoulder and lowered it to the floor, wrapped her up in his arms. Felt good there, right there.

"Bed," she scraped out. "I'm gonna collapse."

"Yeah," he answered, maneuvering them both towards the pale blue comforter. She sank down first, her hand carving under the pillows and dragging the covers towards her before crawling up.

Castle reached down and snagged her heel, pulled off her shoe; she had already worked off the other one. He toed off his own shoes, and then he crawled into bed after her, curling up at her back.

"Door locked?" she mumbled.

"Yeah." And the bags were still where he'd dropped them, the room bathed in grey un-light, her body warm. She curled her arm around his and brought his palm to her chest, pulled him practically on top of her back, but he understood, he felt it too, and they stayed like that, breathing out of rhythm with each other, frozen in some dark place.

"Sleep," she said finally. "We have to sleep."

He buried his face into the back of her neck and let out a long breath, felt his body finally beginning to unwind. "Talk in the morning," he promised. Needed.

She lowered her head and brushed a kissed to his knuckles and that was the last he knew.

* * *

Kate woke before he did and sat up slowly, having to untangle her body from his. She was stiff with hard sleep, muscles protesting, and her stomach was growling intensely in rebuke.

Castle rolled onto his back and kept sleeping, his bangs flopping down in his face. He had a few days' worth of stubble now, thicker at his cheeks and thinning out around his neck, and she couldn't resist leaning in and lightly brushing her lips along his scruff.

He smelled like himself. It was strangely soothing. Cold woods and the warm oil of his skin, a combination that made her stomach flip when she wasn't expecting it but when she was, it just felt like home.

Even though her stomach growled and cramped and she needed to take her prenatal vitamins, she laid back down over him, her head to the heartbeat at his chest. His fingers twitched in sleep, but he didn't move.

Hunched over like this, it soon became uncomfortable, but she clung to it a moment more, a minute longer, pushed herself to stay. She closed her eyes because she could still see the look on his face as he'd begged for her life, begged his own father, how he'd called Black _dad_ in that moment of absolute weakness.

Castle grunted something and woke just like that, his arm coming up to loosely clasp her shoulders. "What's wrong?"

She laughed and lifted her head, a hand planted in the mattress to keep her balance. "Nothing's wrong. Go back to sleep."

"Yeah." His eyes drifted shut again, arm loosening from around her. She leaned in and kissed him lightly, not wanting to drag him back up, and then she got out of bed.

She'd take the pills, shower, find clean clothes, find food. And then if Castle was still asleep, she'd let herself crawl back into bed with him. Maybe sleep would find her then too, find her and keep her.

* * *

It was on towards five when they both were dressed and showered and felt human again. Castle held her hand as they cut through the interior gardens and into the kitchens, the scent of heavy flowers twining around their heads.

The kitchens were noisy and warm and smelled of bread. He took a deep breath and scanned the nooks and crannies, the big stone walls and the tables, the ovens and sinks, the staff moving around in precise and efficient effort. A man jostled them from behind and apologized, kept going towards a table set out with dirty dishes, unloading his arms.

"Grab something?" she murmured.

"I think we're supposed to pay," he laughed, tugging her away from the tables. He knew she was starving - it'd been nearly twenty-four hours since they last ate in Tivoli - but he pulled her back towards the hallway where the waiter had disappeared, and they came out into a vast dining room.

"Oh," she murmured. "It's a restaurant. That's new."

They had to circle the room and thread their way through tables to arrive at the hostess's stand; she looked flustered by their appearance behind her. Castle held up two fingers and the young woman flushed bright red, reached haphazardly for menus before fleeing.

Kate was laughing. "You scared her. Badass super spy."

"Whatever," he muttered, but he followed along behind Kate, their hands still joined, checking out her ass as she walked.

The hostess laid the menus down and disappeared again, and Castle reached out and pulled out Kate's chair. His wife sank into it and a waiter appeared - the same man they'd run into in the kitchens - laying bread on their table.

Kate attacked the rolls, taking two in one hand and putting a third in her mouth. Castle shot her an amused look and asked the waiter for water and pasta and a glass of house red. Kate was completely ignoring him in favor of the bread, spreading butter onto one she'd managed not to devour.

"Do I get one?"

"No. Your kid wants them all. Hands off."

He laughed and simply watched her eat, meticulous and careful despite how ruthlessly she was attacking that bread. The hard crust slowed her down, and she kept licking crumbs from her thumb and fingers, making him feel pretty pleased with himself.

He'd provided her with bread. Big deal. He hadn't done much else. That nasty encounter with his father in Rome had been handled rather exclusively by Kate; he'd just growled and gnashed his teeth and begged an immovable man for mercy.

Kate swallowed hard and stopped, her hand falling back to the table, her eyes on his. "You're thinking about it. About him. Tell me."

"Nothing to tell."

She extended a roll, fingers releasing so that he was forced to catch it before it hit the table. "Tell me."

"I really hate him," he choked out.

"I know."

"But he-" Castle mangled the roll and took a breath, not sure what else would come out of his mouth.

"He should've been more for you. He should've been a father."

He pressed his hand over his eyes and tried to struggle through whatever wanted out, whatever nameless and dark thing still lived in his chest.

"It's okay, Rick," she said softly. "He _is_ your father. You're supposed to feel that way. My dad - you didn't seem him when it was bad. It was really bad. And our relationship was so broken, but it didn't change how desperately I wanted to be enough for him. How much it hurt when I wasn't."

He dropped his hand and stared at her, the roll pulverized in his other fist even though it felt like the bread had caught somewhere hard and painful in his throat.

Kate put her elbows on the table and clasped his hand in both of hers, slowly working her fingers between his. "It's okay to love him," she sighed. "It's okay."

"But he keeps trying to kill you," he rasped. "How can I possibly want to love a man who wants you dead?"

"Oh, love, I know," she murmured.

"I just want - I want one thing. That's all. I don't care about the rest of it, being on the regimen and the training at five and the program and how weird and unnatural it all was. How different it's made me, how odd my life has been. I don't care. He can have it. I'll give it to him. I just want one thing for myself. I just want you."

She clutched his hand in both of hers and half lifted out of her chair, kissing him softly across the table before dropping back to her seat. She shifted and scooted around so that they sat on the same corner, and she rubbed her hand up and down his thigh before hooking her fingers behind his knee. Intimate and familiar and comforting even though nothing had changed, nothing was finished.

"You have me," she said. "You have me no matter what he says or does. You have me."

He nodded and dropped his hand to hers, took her grip from his knee to press a kiss to her knuckles. "I gotta call Mitch. No, I guess Esposito now, since Mitch went public. We have to tell them about Ken Walker."

"Please don't tell Espo first. Tell Ryan. Let them handle it cleanly, carefully."

"Quietly," he added. He felt drained. No longer tired like this morning when they'd arrived, but hollowed out. There was so much more responsibility now that their jungle parasite was in the mix. Castle nudged their joined hands into her hip, stroked his fingers across her shirt. "Everything okay?"

"We're good. Better when that pasta gets here. And I'm going to have a sip of your wine. We're a little - jangled."

"Yeah? What about coffee?"

"I think that will only make it worse. I need to sleep. We'll call and deal with Walker and then we'll sleep."

"Do you think he was being truthful? About Ken."

"Yes," Kate said. She picked his decimated roll from the table and pulled it apart. The inside was still warm and the dough sprang up as she tore at it, but she handed it to him, as if feeding him made it better. At this stage, maybe it did.

He shoved the bread into his mouth and chewed. "This is good bread," he muttered. "Really good."

"You think so too? I thought it was just me," she said. "Or him, really." She pressed her hand to her stomach and flashed him one of those smiles - the regular, familiar one, the one he'd seen a million times, the one that didn't do anything particularly funny to his insides, didn't suggest things, didn't beam brighter. Just a smile because she loved him.

Something about it made the world right, shift into place. All he wanted. And even if his father never could come to a lasting deal with them, Castle would find a way around him. There was always a way.

He reached out and cupped the side of her face, brushing his thumb along her smile. She leaned in, expecting a kiss, but he didn't. He just held her, and he smiled back, and it wasn't even about the baby at all, it was just the warmth in her eyes and the taste of bread on his tongue that she'd shared with him and the bed they both wanted to crawl back into.

A life. It was their life together.


	10. Chapter 10

**Close Encounters 18**

* * *

They'd eaten pasta until it was unseemly, bursting with it, and then they'd ordered two more meals to be covered and taken with them. They stored their brown bags in the mini-fridge and crawled into bed, too replete to move. Kate fell asleep the moment her eyes closed, he could tell, but he'd slept more and it took him longer to get there.

When they were both awake and it was creeping into Wednesday morning, they gave up on restful sleep and pulled spaghetti out of the fridge, heated it in the little microwave, one serving after another, eating from paper plates in bed together. Her toes were cold against his thigh where she'd tucked them under, and he leaned against the wall while she used the headboard, their bodies perpendicular and seeking the other.

He lowered his plate to the floor and left it there, still tasting on his tongue the wine in the sauce and the meatballs, the sharp tones of basil and oregano, and he waited on her to finish. She'd had a small glass of wine at their early dinner yesterday, but she was doggedly taking sips of water, replenishing her fluids with the bottle he'd bought out of the vending machine in the lobby.

"So we have until the end of October or maybe beginning of November," he started, taking her empty plate from her hands. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and nodded. "If we keep his birth quiet, we might buy a couple weeks, but I don't want to bet on it."

"Right. Me either. I also don't want to go dark when James is a newborn. I think it will be hard enough learning to be a mom without adding fearing for our lives on top of it."

He swallowed it back, tried to stay focused. "I don't want to run with a newborn," he scraped out. "But if-"

"Let's not dwell on that," she said. "We'll be ready; I'll help you any way you need to get passports, documents, replace what I took to go to Tunisia."

"I've already taken care of it," he said softly. He was so glad he had, so glad he could offer at least that. "We have everything we need if it comes to that."

"Then we won't talk anymore about it," she said. Her toes wriggled under his thigh. "Talk to me about what we can do after he's born. What our plan is to convince your father to back off."

"It's like you said," he offered. "He bought it all - he thinks James is a part of this now. He thinks he can... sway our son, when the time comes. He thinks James will take up the program."

"Future problems," Kate said easily. "I'm looking right now at the rest of this year. Have James safely, both of us survive, and all three of us go home together. Together. I want to hold my son and nurse him, I want to give him to you to rock to sleep - I want that. I'm going to fight for that, Castle."

He took a deep breath in, nodding, his throat tight. He'd needed to hear that. He knew it was true, but he'd needed to be sure. "Good. Good, then... we can do it. You're going to be sidelined for a few... months? after James is born. I'll sit out too, as much as I can. But I might have to go into the Office."

"Months?" she murmured. "No. Not months. A few weeks."

"A _few_ weeks? Are babies... can they be away from, uh, you know, milk that long?"

She was laughing at him and he narrowed his eyes, but she waved away his indignation and only smiled. "We can do anything we want. I can express milk or we can wean him to formula. I can't - I don't think I want to do more than a few weeks. Four weeks? Certainly not months. Even if he _is_ your son."

Castle laughed, not sure what that meant, and he shrugged back at her. "Okay. So. A few weeks maternity leave. Four seems... maybe six weeks? I'll stick close to home at first - especially those first few weeks when you're vulnerable-"

"You make us sound like vulnerable herd animals. Like water buffalo."

"You're a gazelle at _least_," he said smartly.

Kate laughed again and curled up on her side against the headboard, reaching out and combing her fingers through his bangs, tugging a little at the ends. "You think you're so cute."

"I am pretty cute. You keep running your hand through my hair and sighing. I'm pretty sure that's what that means."

"It means your hair is getting long, you smartass."

He grinned and caught her wrist before she could withdraw it, kissed the slow thump of her pulse. "And when maternity leave is over?"

"You've got my back," she answered. "You always do. I trust you."

He cupped her hand in his and pressed it against his chest. "But what does it look like? What does our life look like after he's born and we don't have him as a shield for you?"

She flinched. "That sounds awful. Using our unborn as a shield."

"It's working," he shrugged. "I don't care. It's working."

Kate rolled her cheek against the headboard and closed her eyes. "It's working. And when my shield is gone... I have you. And we have a plan." She opened her eyes again, filled with grit. "We make sure it never looks like I'm screwing him up - James - we make sure it appears that he's part of Black's program, following the course. If Black thinks I'm unduly influencing him, then I'll stay... stay away. I'll just - you guys can - I'll keep from-"

"No," Castle said sharply. "No. That is unacceptable. That's not life either, Beckett. I _know_ it's not, because that's what I had with him. You're his _mother_, and he is going to have his mother. I will _not_ let Black take that away from him, from us."

She pressed her hand over her mouth, her eyes swimming. "I'm sorry. I - of course we won't - that's what happened to you and I just-"

He gave up on keeping away from her, dragged them together in the middle of the bed to reassure them both. "I know. I know. I want more for us. That's the whole point of everything - that it's more with you, Kate."

She was nodding against him and he forced himself to let go, to reclaim the more light-hearted and confident mood. "You're right about having a plan. Our plan is to perpetuate the show - keep making Black believe we're sold on the regimen, that we know how vital it is to our lives - and some of that is true. We understand what it is, what I need from it, what James might need, but we aren't enslaved to it."

"We're not enslaved," she echoed. "Do you think I'm going to be a good mother to him?"

He dragged his hand down her arm, squeezed her harder. "Yeah, love. You already are."

Her mouth twisted, a crooked smile, and she leaned in against him, her arms wrapping around his torso for a quick hug. "I don't - I don't know about that translating so well to outside, in the world, but thanks."

"How could it not? Everything you're willing to do for him already, and he's just a little frog kicking his legs, a grey wolf on the ultrasound screen."

Kate laid her hand over her stomach. "My little wolf." She laughed and shook her head. "Sasha is going to be so confused."

"Sasha is going to love him."

"Hmm, probably. She's territorial about her people."

"Definitely. Even Carrie and your dad."

"She'll have to share that room. Oh, shit. We have to get furniture. And clothes. Toys."

Castle laughed finally, felt the too-wide focus of his anxiety begin to shift into a narrower range, an easier target, a pinpointed result. "Furniture. A crib and those - what are they called? - I wanna say a one-way voice link, but that's spy stuff."

Kate cracked up, tumbling over into him as she laughed. "Oh, Rick. Yeah, sweetheart, a baby monitor?"

"Yeah, that."

"I'm sure you'll get something intensely informative and completely unnecessary. But yes, we need one of those. And a shitload of diapers."

He grinned. "You made a joke." Shitload.

"A jo-? Oh, I did," she giggled. _Giggled_. His spy wife did not giggle.

"You're fucking tired," he grumbled, wrapping an arm around her and sliding them down in bed. "Come on. We'll talk about furniture until you fall asleep."

"We didn't really decide on a plan for after, did we?"

"Close enough. We play the game - but not to the detriment of our family. That's a plan. I don't care if I have to lie to his face for the rest of his life. I'll do it if it means keeping you off his radar."

She settled in at his shoulder and he brushed her hair out of his mouth even as she smoothed the wrinkles out of his shirt. "I think that so long as we're in the CIA, your father will be satisfied. He wants the work to continue, and we've basically put him on reset with - with James."

With James. "Kate, if the day comes... and that's a cosmic shift right there, me being able to say _if_ instead of _when_. But _if_ the day comes that we can't play the game, that he doesn't buy it anymore or he takes it upon himself to - to steal my son or murder my _wife_ - I will kill him. I won't hesitate. And if that day comes, Kate, please. Please don't stop me. Trust me to know when the time is right, when it is beyond salvation. Please. Please trust me."

For a long moment, Kate was completely stiff in his arms, unspeaking, her breathing harsh in the morning light. And then her voice came, low and rough, her forehead pressed to his shoulder.

"I trust you." She made a fist in his shirt and gripped so tightly he could feel the press of her nails through the material and into his skin. "If it comes, that day we can't convince him, I won't stop you. I want this more, I want us. I want us."

He wanted to sob in relief, but instead he just rolled over into her and buried her with his body, covering her, so damn grateful.

She'd conceded to him on Bracken and the day had never come. She'd conceded now about his father but he was afraid - he'd been afraid it would come all too soon. He'd been afraid of what would happen to her if he had to kill Black.

And now he wasn't.

She'd given him license to kill his father, if it was necessary.

He felt a lot better now.

* * *

She slept hard and woke disoriented in the darkness.

Her eyes scanned the room in a confusing jumble and eventually the shape of things made themselves known to her - the pale window, the dresser, the chair, her husband in bed with her. She found the wind-up alarm clock ticking on the nightstand and couldn't comprehend the time.

What day was it, how long had she slept?

Kate slid out of bed and swayed with the motion, blinking to clear her head, and she reached for her phone and its display.

It was tomorrow. Tomorrow _night_. She'd slept straight through. Holy shit.

And she was starving again, and the pill - she hadn't taken either one, and Castle.

She turned in bed and reached for him, fingers at his shoulder. He came awake instantly, not even groggy and sat up on his elbow. "You're awake."

"It's tomorrow," she said stupidly.

He chuckled and sat up against the headboard, rubbing his hands over his face. "I woke a few times but you were still passed out."

"I'm starving," she muttered.

"We have leftovers in the fridge, if you want something fast. I got up at about eight this morning and found us a new place to stay."

She had been getting out of bed to head for the food but at his announcement, she turned quickly, stunned. "You _left_ me?"

He stared at her in the darkness for half a beat too long and her heart dropped to her stomach. "No," he croaked. "Not - didn't leave you. God, no. I used the internet service here. The laptop. Not in person."

She sank weakly to the mattress and dipped her head in her hands. "Sorry. Sorry, I'm - still fuzzy with sleep."

He came up at her back and leaned in, his arms around her and his mouth against the nape of her neck. "And hunger, I'm sure. I thought you must need the sleep. You've had four hours at a time and that can't be sustained, love."

"No, I'm okay," she assured him. "I'm fine. Just surprised. And yeah, hungry. I'll eat and we can check out the place you found?"

"Sounds good. We'll sit on it for a few days, see what the neighborhood is like, the routines, until we're sure."

"Don't buy it with the Rodgers name-"

"No, of course not," he murmured. "Eat, Kate. We'll talk when you've gotten some food in you."

"Yeah," she said, nodding. She was all over the place, her mind focused on food like a dog with a bone. "I miss my dog."

He laughed and nuzzled the skin behind her ear. "Yeah, love. I do too. Let me heat up some spaghetti for you."

He crawled past her and got out of bed, heading for the mini fridge and their leftovers. She raised a shaky hand to her hair and scraped it off her face, feeling weird. She'd missed the whole day.

Castle heated her food and she finally got out of bed, shedding clothes as she went. Their bag was on top of the dresser, nothing unpacked, and she dug through it for clean underwear and a pair of jeans.

"Here, love," he said softly. "Can I turn the light on?"

"Yeah," she answered, wincing when the brightness flooded her retinas. She found green panties and a black bra, struggled into them even while her limbs were still rubbery from too much sleep.

She slid her legs into her jeans, huffing a breath as she buttoned them. She brushed a touch over her stomach and even though the bump was significant to her, it wasn't really all that much. A snug fit to her jeans was all.

Castle had laid food out in its cardboard box on the small table pushed up against the wall, and she sank down gratefully, grabbed the fork.

"Babe, seriously. You don't even have on a shirt."

"So what? I have on a bra."

He snorted something and his fingers danced over her shoulder and down, making her skin ripple. His kiss was soft against the side of her neck, his thumb hooking under one strap, his hand following the line of her bra. She caught her breath and swallowed her bite of spaghetti, lifted her free hand to cup his face.

"You gonna follow through?" she husked.

"No. Just here to tease you like you're teasing me."

She laughed and turned into his cheek, nipped his jaw with her teeth.

"Ouch," he grumbled.

"I'm hungry," she warned him.

Castle removed his hand and kissed her hard on the cheek before leaving her to it. He went back to the bed and pulled the covers up, a fit of domesticity she'd never seen in him before. He was straightening the clothes in the duffle bag and checking the equipment they'd appropriated from his father when her phone buzzed on the table.

She swallowed her next to last bite, slid a finger over the lock screen. When she entered the code, she realized it'd been an email alert.

"Your father arrived safely," she said, her heart thumping. "He - just emailed me."

"What?" he rasped. His fingers plucked the phone out of her hand and he read it for himself while she finished off the last of the spaghetti. "That disturbs me. Profoundly disturbs me."

"What? That he's safe or that he's emailing me?"

"Emailing you," he growled. "We had a plan, a different way to communicate. But instead. He's made you complicit in his escape."

She pressed her lips together, frowning, and Castle growled.

"Still playing fucking games. With your _life_. Now you've got an email from him at your government account that says loud and clear you helped him escape despite the capture/kill order."

"And it blackmails you as well," she said softly. "Because even if we delete it - even if I have Ryan go back in the servers and delete it - it's still there. It's his way of assuring our deal, and honestly, Castle, do you blame him?"

"Yes," he hissed. "I blame him." He slapped the phone back into her hand and paced the floor.

She shut her mouth and watched him work out his frustration, leaned forward to toss the cardboard container into the trash can.

"Hey," she said quietly.

He turned on his heel, his face thunderous, helpless. Her heart ached for him but there wasn't a thing she could do about it. Except distract him.

"Let's go look at our new place, okay?"

He took in a breath and squeezed his hands into fists at his sides. She saw the effort it took to calm down, the way he subsumed all that rage, and she knew the day would come when he couldn't - when it wouldn't be tamed, when the years of abuse and neglect and attempted _murder_ by his father would rise up in Castle and take over.

But maybe this was a fresh start, a way to build a different relationship, a way to salvage whatever had been and make something new. Maybe his father wouldn't always want her dead, maybe James was the missing piece.

She had to hope. She needed that hope. Because they needed Black.


	11. Chapter 11

**Close Encounters 18: License to Kill**

* * *

"I called Ryan while you were asleep," he told her. They had taken a cab to a car rental agency in the heart of the city, and now they were driving a snub little Fiat Panda. It was the one of the highest selling cars in Italy, so it didn't stand out, despite its electric blue color.

She liked it. She really liked the car. Maybe she'd been sick of the sober and serious Range Rovers and too-slick Chargers. The Panda was the kind of car a little family might have.

Castle was looking at her expectantly.

She bit her bottom lip. "You called Ryan about - oh, about Ken Walker?"

"Yeah. You remember when we were looking at Mitchell for this?"

"Yeah?" she queried, turning her head away from him. The sun was pouring in through the open window and her hair whipped around her face; she kept curling it behind her ears, tucking it under the earpieces of her sunglasses, but it didn't do any good.

"Ryan thought maybe those server entries were doctored. Replace Walker with Mitchell. Maybe it was just that easy."

"Cut and paste? But they don't even have the same number of letters. We'd notice a cut and paste," she shot back.

"Yeah, but typographically, the two are the same," he mused. "I think."

"What does that mean?"

"On the screen, the font that the coding system uses? The letters aren't equal spaces, which means that the words 'Walker' and 'Mitchell' might take up exactly the same amount of room. So inserting Mitchell's name actually does't mean a substantial difference in print outs and reports. We might never have noticed."

"No, but the code language - root command font that Ryan uses on those main server rooms is different than what we saw on the reports. Remember? It's the green screen, the black box - that _is_ equal letter spacing." Kate knew that much from doing her own illicit conversing with Black before she'd gone to Tunisia. "Equal letter spacing in the command font means we should have seen something like cutting and pasting."

"I don't know," he mused. Castle made a hard right turn onto the next street, increasing their speed. "Forget the spacing. That's not the important part. However it's happened, Ken Walker implicated Mitchell because the names were easy or convenient or Black told him to - and he's our mole. Ryan is telling Esposito right now, and they're going to take him quietly."

"He's not a traitor."

Castle grunted. "He's working for my father for whom there's a capture/kill order out. I would think that qualifies as being on the wrong side of things, Kate."

"I mean - he didn't know that going into it. Not necessarily. The CIA Director himself had Black working for him in Russia; you can't assume that Ken knew anything about the rest of it."

"And when you were kidnapped by Bracken?" he growled. She saw that instinct to maul something, to blow shit up had come on strong; he was gripping the steering wheel.

"You said he was instrumental in your finding the location. That wasn't the work of a traitor, Rick." Surely that had to count for something, that was a debt they owed the man.

"Ryan will make sure it's all done aboveboard," Castle finally said, as if to console her.

She remained quiet beside him, her fingers worrying the center console, but he didn't seem to feel it was necessary to make promises over Walker.

But the remainder of their drive wasn't silent; leaving the historic center of Firenze, the tourists and traffic was crowded and thick on either side. Castle had to pay attention to his driving and the pedestrians that darted across, but Kate was lulled by the sights - a glimpse of the Fountain of Neptune just down a main side street, The Duomo distinct in the cityscape, the tourists and lovers and natives.

The River Arno sliced through the heart of Firenze, and the bridges were ancient and enduring, stores built up on stilts beside them, boat traffic cluttering the banks. Castle wove them expertly through the city towards the sprawling house he'd found just off Viale Galileo.

He parked down the street from the house; the narrow stone walls surrounding the estate blocked their view. "Want to get out and walk by?"

"Yeah, wow, this is gorgeous. Look at those trees and the hills. The view is amazing."

"The walls are high and it keeps it private," he noted, stepping out of the car. "Plus it has a quick access to the water, if we needed that escape."

She shot him a beaming smile over the roof of the Fiat for that one, after what happened in Rome, his father in their apartment, she knew he wanted that extra sense of security. Honestly, she did too.

Castle took her hand at the flagstone sidewalk, and they strolled up towards the house.

"Gorgeous," she murmured. "Can we afford this?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of?" she chuckled.

"I've had some money stashed for us - for emergencies. I consider this an emergency."

She turned to him, suddenly saw the sunlight touching his cheeks and gilding his hair, the lines around his eyes as he regarded her. How much he loved her, how much he wanted to keep them safe. "Yeah, this could be an emergency. Can we go inside - is it vacant?"

"It's vacant," he said. "But there's an alarm system, rather good one too."

"As good as ours at home?"

He nodded. "Expensive place. The house isn't huge - only two bedrooms - but space is at a premium here. So the alarm system is worth it."

Two bedrooms was perfect. "Can we climb the stone walls and peek inside?"

He shot her a narrow look but she smirked at him. She wasn't serious. She knew he wasn't about to scale those eight foot walls with his pregnant wife. Though it'd be fun. He didn't seem to realized she wasn't serious though.

She squeezed his hand and nudged her hip into his. "Kidding, baby. Don't look so grim. Oh, look, that's gorgeous."

They'd come upon the house now, set back a little from the narrow lane, the old stones cracked and pitted with sun and rain. The wall ended at the side of the house, a small, rounded door set into the concrete, and the house itself was a soft shade of yellow. Two-storied, terra-cotta tiled roof, the house offered a balcony wrapping the entire length of the second floor and a garage at street level.

Kate hadn't realized just how much she'd wanted to love this place until the relief hit her. "I think they have a garden inside the walls. Can you smell it?"

"Smell it?" he asked.

She closed her eyes and sniffed, filling up her senses. "Oregano and basil. Mint. Mmm, I love that."

"The balcony on the other side overlooks a city garden too," he offered. "Plus all those windows on the second floor."

He was trying so hard for her. "You hate windows," she said. It was crazy how much she adored him. How his hand around hers was warm and strong and she wanted to wrap him up with her body.

"The windows are on the second floor. So that's better," he compromised. "Snipers across the way, maybe, but not likely with the stone walls and the awkward angle of the house to the street - not quite flush."

She laughed because he was serious, and because he was paranoid enough to make sure they'd be okay. "I love it."

"Yeah?"

"I know buying it anonymously means we won't get a walk-through, but it just _feels_ good. Doesn't it?"

"I thought so. And there are pictures online of a few of the rooms. Two bedrooms but it has a library. That seemed important."

She turned to smile at him, her heart full, but the sunlight behind his head was so dazzling that it made her eyes hurt. While she was still wordless with it, Castle leaned in and kissed her, touching his fingertips to her chin. She stepped into him and slid her arms loosely around his waist, giving him back a little more aggression for all his softness.

She loved this man, so much. So very much.

"You found me a library," she murmured. "Have I said recently that I love you?"

"Recently? Yeah," he smiled. "All the time, sweetheart. In a hundred different ways."

* * *

They bought the house.

Of course, they had sat on it all day, watching the neighborhood's rhythms, the coming and going of its residents and the flow of traffic. That had been the problem - and probably Castle's major selling point - it didn't have traffic, so they hadn't been able to stay long.

They bought the house.

It felt more earth-shaking than it really was, she supposed. "Do you realize that we have been forced to move every time we've gotten a new place?" she laughed, signing her name to the bottom of the paperwork.

Her name? Well, one of them anyway. Didn't matter. She could be anyone if she had Castle.

"Forced to move?" he said.

"My apartment got blown up, so we bought a house. Your father took over our place in Rome, so we bought a house."

He chuckled, at least he could laugh about it too. He took the sheaf of papers from her and tapped them against the top of the table to straighten them up, pushed them back into the envelope. "You're right. We just bought a house."

"We have the money?"

"We have the money," he assured her. "It's coming out of the account I set up for us. You have the number; I gave it to you when I did it."

"I know," she said easily. "But I don't look at all that. I just sign what you give me, baby."

He sighed at her, but she was mostly kidding. She really did look, from time to time, into the accounts and arrangements he'd made for them if they had to run. She had to be as well-versed in every aspect of their cover IDs, know where to go if they got separated. She was teasing him, but maybe he wasn't in a good place for that right now.

"You do know where we meet if-"

"I know," she soothed immediately, rubbing her fingers at the nape of his neck. It was their last night in the bed and breakfast; he'd arranged for them to move into the house tomorrow morning, rushing through the paperwork. It wouldn't legally be theirs for another six weeks, but they were 'renting' it for now. "Castle, I'm kidding. If we get separated, I find you in Cologne."

"And?"

She fixed him with a steady look; he was worried and she could be play the game. "Hotel Leonet Ravel," she murmured. "It has a marble lobby. Check in under the name Susserman."

Castle sank back in the chair he'd pulled up to the little table, relief so clearly evident that she leaned in and softly kissed the corner of his eye, still stroking the hair at his nape.

"Nothing is going to separate us," she said. She'd found herself making these promises to him like he always made to her - impossible promises - but she understood now _why_ he made them, how he thought he could will them to hold true. She thought the same when it came to them.

The regimen and the deal with his father had done a lot to boost her confidence. Even if they had to run with the baby, it would work - they could make it work.

His phone vibrated in his front shirt pocket, startling them both. Kate dipped her fingers into his pocket and brought out the phone, answering it for him.

"This is Beckett."

"Beckett," the voice said. For a moment, she couldn't place it and then she realized it was Ryan, his tone altered by the distance. "Hey, wanted you to know we got Walker into custody."

"Is he okay?" she asked.

"Esposito didn't beat him black and blue, if that's what you mean. We're still cops at heart - you know that, right? Yeah, we all feel the betrayal, but we can do the job."

"Good. I knew you could," she said. Castle was reaching for the phone, but she ignored him. "We're going to have to treat this one very carefully, Ry. I want Ken Walker to know that Black was the one who gave him up to us. His questioning needs to be specific - there are so many psychological things at work here. I mean, Walker was only obeying his former boss, helping someone he thought was an honorable man. And was-"

Castle was grumbling at her when Ryan interrupted. "Beckett. Slow down. Look, why don't you just do the interrogation yourself?"

"What? Like a conference call? That doesn't work. It needs to be face to face, Ryan. You need to be able to read his body language and eye movement the second you ask-"

"No," Ryan cut in. There was a peculiar note to his voice that she'd chalked up to long distance. But now it sounded gleeful. "Not like a skype date, Beckett. It's why I'm calling."

Kate stood up straight, knowing before he said it what was going on. "I can-"

"You can come home."

"Home," she murmured. Her eyes cast down to the paperwork still in Castle's hands, the Florentine house they'd just bought. Castle's hand came out but instead of grabbing the phone from her in her moment of weakness, he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her into his lap.

Ryan went on. "The NSA have concluded their case. Maine's trial is underway and they've agreed to let you back in the States."

"I can come home," she echoed.

Castle nuzzled his nose into her neck, his arms tight around her, his hand gripping her thigh to hold her in his lap.

"What about Bracken?" she asked then.

"Despite the NSA's best efforts, the truth has come out. Didn't Castle tell you?"

"Castle tell me what?" she said harshly, jerking in her husband's arms to stare at him. He gave her a tired smile, nodded his head to the phone. "Ryan, tell me what?"

"Mitchell and his reporter. They found tapes - digital recordings - that one of her informants in the NSA leaked. They published the transcripts and went on Dateline and did this whole thing about how he was taking illegal campaign contributions."

"Are you - serious?" she gasped.

"Yeah, now, look. Mitch couldn't make it tie back to your mother's murder. But they got him taking money from the mob. So now it looks like you're just a cop that got caught up in the middle of the mob's double crossing him. He still dies because he was coming to your rescue against the likes of Maine and hired guys from the Westies, but he doesn't die cleanly."

Kate sank her head into her hand and closed her eyes. "And does he - what's happening with the story? Do people believe it? Is it - do they think I've been..."

Ryan was silent for a moment, but when she couldn't come up with the words to ask if everyone still thought she was crazy, he didn't jump in to offer reassurance. She gritted her teeth and opened her eyes, saw Castle watching her.

"Ryan? I'll let you talk to Castle. But don't do anything with Ken Walker until we get back. I'm taking lead on his interrogation."

"Yes, ma'am," he answered.

Beckett handed the phone to Castle and stood up from his lap.

She needed to take a walk.

When she moved for the door, Castle made a noise and tried to come after her, the phone pressed to his ear as he greeted Ryan. She stayed him with a hand.

She needed to think, to come to terms with this - her mother's death, Bracken's part in it, and now how the world still would never know the truth. She needed a moment alone.

Castle looked upset when she left, but she was only going to walk through the interior gardens, clear her head. She needed to come back to the US with a fresh start, a perspective as unbiased as she could make it.

She needed closure.

* * *

Castle didn't go after her even though he ached to reassure himself she was still there. He ended the phone call with Ryan and paced the small bedroom on the second floor, and he tried to be logical, rational, not the bully who wanted to drag his wife back into view. Or handcuff her to the headboard and lock the doors and never leave.

Sometimes they did that, but this wasn't one of those times.

She needed to walk in the gardens, she needed to come to terms with everything they'd been through, and he could be good enough, a decent enough man to support her in that. He had to keep reminding himself that she'd been alone and grieving for years before him - a whole history of pain and struggle and searching that he hadn't been involved with at all.

He reminded himself of the look on her face when he'd suggested - after sex one night, of course - that he could look into her mother's death, lend her the resources of the CIA. Worse than that moment was the day he'd told her that he'd appropriated the case, that it was the CIA's jurisdiction now.

Castle _knew_ her heart was tangled up in her mother's death. He knew it.

So it shouldn't be so hard, so damn difficult, to give her an hour to walk in the gardens.

After too long, Castle realized that the damn balcony off their room opened up over those very same gardens.

He could probably see her from here, if only he looked.

Striding to the double doors, he pushed aside the velvet drapes, allowing the sun to come dazzling through. The sky was so blue it hurt, and it met the horizon in a riot of red and gold and yellow buildings, the whole city conspiring to scrape raw his vision.

Castle ducked his head and pushed open the doors, stepped softly out onto the narrow balcony. The stone was cold to the touch, shadowed by the lee of the building, and he settled against the wall, elbows on top of the railing to survey the gardens.

Green hedges framed the brick walkways, boxy shrubs that were perfectly manicured and trimmed. The riot of wildflowers in their bricked beds were a marked contrast to the order of the paths and the curves of the arches, dots of purple and white and soft blues that soothed his eyes.

And there she was, the solitary figure of his wife. She stood in the middle of the thickly green lawn, her arm stretched out to let her fingers play in the spray of a fountain. Her hair was falling down around her face and burnished bronze in the sunlight. He could hear the splash of the water and the way her cupped palm interrupted the flow, the halting of its rhythm.

Castle kept still, watching her.

She let her hand drop and the water flowed on, a soft white noise that echoed through the garden. The thin fingers of the Cypress trees stood sentinel around her, a wide ring guarding her lonely presence.

He wanted to hold her. Not for him, not because he needed to touch her, affirm her breathing life, but for her. He wanted to hold her for her.

Let her be less alone.

But he stayed where he was because she had always resisted his intrusion into this dark chapter of her life, and he wanted her to find closure in her own strength. Even if it had to be alone. Some things... some things needed this - the quiet of loneliness - to find peace.

He watched her until her shoulders straightened and her chin came up, her eyes out over the arch of the columns and beyond. He saw her hands press over her abdomen and his heart kicked hard, one with her in that moment.

It was time for a new beginning. It was time to leave the twisted ruins of that old life and take this journey along a new path. Together.

Kate turned her head and immediately looked straight up towards him on the balcony, her eyes catching his, something earthy and erotic and raw about the way they connected.

She beckoned and he had to check his first, immediate thought to jump over the railing and swing down to the next balcony, down again to the roof over the archway, and finally land in the soft, thick grass at her feet.

Instead he turned back for the doors and took the long way to get to her.

* * *

The End of **Close Encounters 18: License to Kill**

Stay tuned for **Close Encounters 19: Thunderball**

* * *

When Kate finally found him, Castle was in his office of all places.

He was never in his office. He was always out in the control room, keeping track of their missions and the analysts down in the pit, or stopping by her work station and getting the input of the whole team.

She paused in the doorway to assess her husband, noted the slouched line of his shoulders under the cloth of his dress shirt, the way he rubbed two fingers over his eyebrows like he was massaging a sinus headache. He was slumped over his desk but his laptop wasn't open, just files of paperwork strewn over the wood.

"Hey, sweetheart," she murmured, stepping in the office.

Castle lifted his head slowly and his eyes landed on her with something like relief. Kate came to his side at the desk and ran her fingers through his hair, tugged his head into her for an embrace. Castle sighed and buried his nose in the crook of her arm, his ear pressed to her stomach even as he sank against her.

Kate smoothed her fingers through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. She laid her other arm over his shoulders and rubbed his back, let him take the time he needed.

She knew he'd been in here listening to confessions all morning. The entire division had talked about nothing else. People were coming out of the woodwork, though thankfully most were giving grievance to the things Black had made them do while he was still Agent In Charge.

But her husband had been forced to act the priest, hearing all the sins of his own father, and it couldn't have been good for him.

And still Castle leaned against her. She was grateful she'd closed his door when she'd come inside, and now she trailed her fingers around his eye socket, the shape of his cheekbone, and down around his ear. He breathed out against her and she felt the heat of him strike something deep in her, call and response.

Kate wanted very badly to take him home and let him sleep, maybe have him sprawled against her like he often wound up in the middle of the night, heavy and boneless and nearly on top of her.

Not for much longer, couldn't do that. Baby would get in the way.

But in lieu of bed and hiding away from the world, she could take him to lunch. Kate rubbed her fingers along his ear and tugged softly until she knew she had his attention.

"You're taking a break. We'll get tacos from the cart and eat under the trees in the park," she said quickly. "Come on, Castle."

He didn't lift from her, but he muttered something against her shirt that she didn't catch.

She refused to be put off. "Up, baby. I'm taking you out. Little wolf is hungry."

Castle startled a laugh and tilted his head back to look at her. "Uh-huh. All right. I'm coming."


End file.
